The issue of information literacy has become a key issue in the library environment, an issue which they have devoted numerous articles, papers and presentations at conferences and seminars, both a practical and theoretical.
Specifically, university libraries have many years working on this issue and trying to improve information skills of university students.
To what extent this work is having an impact on capabilities of university students, it is almost essential to know how users assess their own knowledge and skills in search, collection, analysis and systematization of information. This is dedicated an interesting study by Psychology researchers at the Education and Library Services University of the Balearic Islands, which appeared in the English Journal of Scientific Documentation.
First, we talk about the five types of literacies to work effectively in the world of ICT:
- Technology Literacy (merely instrumental)
- Information Literacy (mentioned above)
- media Creativity: Ability to develop and distribute content.
- Global Literacy: ability to understand the interdependence between actors, technology and content.
- responsible Literacy: ability to properly consider the consequences of the media.
I refer to these terms because we can consider this classification useful. This study deals with the second type mentioned.
The following is a brief review of the previous literature on the subject and then discusses the technical issues of statistical analysis.
Now we enter into the results, which are noteworthy are the following, many of them quite surprising at first sight, even after the findings show that these surprises have their justification:
- Students perform a self-assessment survey of their knowledge to find general information and academic information on the Internet much more positive than when referring to the use of libraries for the same purpose.
- College students show a poorer perception of their ability to find academic information in libraries that female college students.
- positive self-perception regarding their abilities to gather information in libraries improvement course to course.
- Students of Humanities is by far the most positive that values \u200b\u200btheir expertise in the use of libraries documented. At the opposite pole are the students of Social Sciences and Law.
- UIB Students used the Internet to document much more for academic libraries and the library service in general.
- The frequency of use of the library as a source of documentation academic is higher in the higher grades.
- 70% of Humanities students are frequent. In contrast, almost 80% of students in Social Sciences and Law say they do not normally use library services.
After capturing these and other findings, the study reached the following conclusions:
- The university students have a better self to their level of competence in the use of Internet. This is consistent with other research as developed by EDUCAUSE Overall Study in the U.S..
- The university students with good self-concept when using the services for academic librarians is that of a student of final year students enrolled in a career field of Humanities.
- While university students with a positive self-concept regarding the use of Internet is that of a student's third year of a career in the field of Social Sciences and Law.
- Several studies in very different latitudes show that Internet is the preferred resource for college students to find academic information.
- Profile frequent user of libraries and library catalog is that of a student in their final years a career of Humanities.
- The university students have difficulty distinguishing between electronic resources provided by the library and are accessible via the Internet, open-access resources on the Web
- In general, it makes extensive use of ICT as a documentary source, while using an almost marginal library services.
This suggests that the so-called "digital natives" for the simple fact of being, have a good informational training. And it makes the authors conclude that requires the creation and consolidation of the CRAI (Centers Learning and Research) to attract users to improve their libraries and information capabilities , so they can extract the most out of their university education.
Note1: link to the original text: Comas, Ruben ... (Et al.). The search for academic information among university students. English journal of scientific documentation, vol.34, No. 1, 44-64.
Note2: CSIC server takes a few days with problems, as I will stop them direct access to the article.
Note2: CSIC server takes a few days with problems, as I will stop them direct access to the article.
0 comments:
Post a Comment