comparative analysis on information … gse15/g 068... · comparative analysis on information ......

Proceeding of the 3rd Global Summit on Education GSE 2015 (e-ISBN 978-967-0792-01-1), 9-10 March 2015, Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA. Organized by http://WorldConferences.net 169

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ON INFORMATION SEEKING BEHAVIOUR AMONG UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS IN UITM JOHOR:

GRAVITATING INFORMATION LITERATE SOCIETY

Nurhafizah Azizan1, Suhaila Osman2, Noor Faraliza Samsudin3, Siti Hajar Baharin4, Razifah Othman5 and Aflah Isa6

Faculty of Information Management1,2,3,4,5 Faculty of Business & Management6

Universiti Teknologi MARA, Johor [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

ABSTRACT

This study is attempted to determine the awareness and identify problem face by the undergraduate’s students in their behaviour of seeking information during their learning process. Thus, understanding the basic information seeking behaviour will improve library collection and services and perhaps improving information literacy skill of undergraduate students in UiTM Johor. This quantitative study use questionnaire as instrumentation in collect data as randomly from 200 undergraduate students across four faculties and 150 filled in questionnaire were returned. Study shows that students visit library for the purpose of conducive place for reading/study and awareness towards library services highly rated to discussion room. Library need to strengthen their skill class seems that majority of undergraduate’s students having problem on information are scatter in too many sources and do not know to perform library searching skill .They also seem highly rely on lecturer notes and textbook while article journal rank as third place for source of information. Therefore, through study finding it’s hope that library can improve their planning and strategies in develop the collection and services to occupy and counter for the undergraduate’s students information need.

Keyword : Information seeking behaviour , Information need, Undergraduate’s student, User studies

1. INTRODUCTION

The indulgence of information nowadays is giving opportunities for the undergraduate students in

seeking their information in meet their educational purpose through various format of information.

Expectation that students have to use holistic range of information seeking tools in embarking

information need as it is a key competency in driven their learning process which Malaysia producing

information literate society. It is a common to assume that undergraduate students are mature in

seeking information as they are exposing to the variety of information sources they are eligible to

access. It was supported by their diploma or previous experience in completing their task. In this

context, most of the students did know how to seek for information; unfortunately not all the

information needed meet their requirement. Information seeking behaviour defines as user studies in

process of searching, obtaining, and using information for a purpose. Therefore, this study involves

experiencing library users use information sources to investigate information activities in retrieving

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information needed. This study will be investigated at PerpustakaanTun Dr. Ismail Library where all the

activities of information seeking behaviour arise. Lack of information skill and searching techniques will

drag students to retrieve poor information and usage of the internet sources such as Google, Yahoo or

Alta Vista, and others will lead students to the unauthentic information retrieval. This study is made

effort to identify the problems that undergraduate students encounter in information seeking and to

determine undergraduate student's awareness of the library services available to them. The study

collected empirical data on the information requirement of undergraduate students. 200 undergraduate

students will be randomly selected from three different faculties in UiTM Johor.

2. PROBLEM STATEMENT

Number of undergraduate's students has decrease in seeking information while completing their assignment task by utilizing university libraries services and sources. It is also stated by Hajar & Diljit (2006) the library usage was not very frequent access and make use by the user when doing the academic task. Undergraduate students prefer to depend on the internet sources as it providing faster, and ease of result search compared to the library. As reported that the majority of college students have gone online as they began using a computer in the ages of 5 and 8 (Martin, 2008).Other issues be considered are some of the students are preferred to use lecturer handouts rather than textbook, article journals or study guide in completing their task, materials outdated and unwillingness assistance of library among problems arise when seek for the information (Msr. Saufi & Raja Abdullah, 2010).Couple lack of skills and techniques in information seeking can fail the students from retrieving information needed (Hajar & Diljit, 2006).Despite that, library still actively playing role as information provider to undergraduate's students without concerning the awareness of user towards their library service. Through this study, library can recognize the basic information seeking behaviour of students.

3. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 1. To determine undergraduate student’s awareness of the library services available to them. 2. To identify the problems that undergraduate student’s encounter in seeking information.

4. SIGNIFICANCE AND UNIQUENESS

The findings of the study will provide salient evidence of the technical problem face among the undergraduate students' of UiTM Johor Branch in seeking the information. This will enable librarian to be better in providing library services and training to encounter the problem. The findings may also contribute to the development of awareness among the undergraduate students in using library services. Using internet sources as main priority in seeking information will lead students to find unauthentic information. It is hoped that this study would encourage further related research to identify strategies for improving undergraduate students' information seeking behaviour.

5. LITERATURE REVIEW

Information Seeking Behavior

According to the Salina & Shaheen (2001), the process of identifying information needs is the way to individuals articulate, seek, evaluate, select and finally use the required information is known as



information seeking behaviour. As also mentioned by Abdoulaye (2002), human seek information for achieving goals and objectives in education, economy, politics and social activities and for the students they need information for gaining more knowledge in a respective field and for preparing course assignments and project papers using a variety sources and services. Furthermore, Ocholla (1999) mentioned information seeking behaviour is closely related to user studies, market analysis, user surveys, information analysis, community analysis and information needs assessment that widely applied in the study of user needs in library and information science. According Shaheen & Gava (2000), information seeking behaviour involves a set of action that an individual takes to express information needs, seek information, evaluate and select information, and finally uses this information to satisfy his/her information needs.

Awareness Of Library Services

Abdoulaye (2002) study, found that student least consulted printed abstract and indexes, but they are more comfortable with IT-based information retrieval systems than traditional ones. Moreover, the time and effort required to use printed material be as a factor why the students prefer the IT based information retrieval system. As also mentioned by Mohd Sharif & A.N Zainab (2009), books were high on the list of information sources while journal articles were among the least used source and the students preferably to search the internet as it convenient for them. Through the internet, they believed that they would obtain and getting the most up-to-date information in a quick way as it was readily available to them. Students are aware of using articles from the journal where they had found it through the internet web page retrieved, which included sites from universities, research projects, development organizations and online journals. In relation to this, it found that students felt using online database was cumbersome, and some of them did know about searching using online database. According to George et.al (2006), he has focused on information behaviour of high school, college, university students and professional. Two recent national studies looked at information behaviour in college and universities. Both studies correlate that the internet and libraries' online resources play a heavy role in user information seeking. Compare to the finding by Al-Suqri (2007) determine that social science students still prefer use printed material such as journal and books due to the limited availability information sources in Arabic language.

Problem in Seeking Information

A study conducted by Msr. Saufi & Raja Abdullah(2010) revealed that undergraduate students heavily use Web (i.e. Internet sources) rather than print source document and this situation shows that undergraduate students do not use proper technique, for example, BOOLEAN techniques to seek and retrieve information needed and this lead them to find outdated sources. Reported also, they also feel uncomfortable when dealing with the library staff. As mentioned by the Zhang, et al. (2005) in her exploratory study, users who were more knowledgeable in a field or about the topic to be searched would perform better in searching rather than the users who had less knowledge in the field. In other studies by Wickramanayake, (2010) revealed most of the participants know about the academic library skills but had not sought assistance from the library staff in finding the information sources and searching from the automated library catalogue. Some sophisticated services such as "computerized literature searching" and "use of library equipment" had made certain barriers for their library usage.



6. METHODOLOGY

6.1 Sample and data collection method

According to Uma Sekaran (2010), sampling begins with precisely defining the target population. Population is a group of people that the researcher wants to investigate. Target population that been chosen normally depends on the objective of the research itself. Hence, population size in this research focused on 200 out of 1,730 undergraduate students across four (4) faculties in UiTM Johor which use simple random sampling as basic sampling technique and has least bias and offer most generalizability.

6.2 Instrumentation

Primary data from questionnaire was used to determine undergraduate student's awareness of the library services available to them and to identify the problems that undergraduate students encounter in seeking information. This questionnaire was adopted from previous study by Msr. Saufi and Raja Abdullah (2010) and Shaheen & Gava (2000).

This questionnaire divide by two (2) sections which in section one (1) consist on demographic characteristic of respondents and section two (2) consist of four (4) items on (i) purpose of visit, (ii) awareness of library services availability, (iii) problem in information seeking behaviour and (iv)source of information. This survey was conducted at Perpustakaan TunDr Ismail, UiTM Johor by distributed 200 set of questionnaire to be filled up but 150 of them were returned and deemed useful for data analysis.

7. FINDING & DISCUSSION

7.1 Finding

Reliability analysis

According to Gliem, G.A (2003), when using Likert-type scales it is imperative to calculate and report Cronbach's alpha coefficient for internal consistency reliability for any scales or subscales one may be using. Cronbach's alpha was used in assessing the internal consistency of the items in the instruments. The reliability of instruments for each item in section two (2) of the questionnaire will be presented in Table 2.

Table 1 : Reliability Analysis – Cronbach’s Alpha

Dimension Total items Reliability (Cronbach’s alpha)

Purpose of visit 6 .726

Awareness of Library Services 12 .766

Problem in Information Seeking Behaviour 12 .846

Sources of Information 10 .809



The range of Cronbach’s alpha coefficient value for all variables was range between .73 to .81 and it is accepted that reliability coefficient value for this study is .76 for all items in questionnaire. As Nunally (1978) recommend that the reliability of the instrument should be 0.70 or more.

7.2 Descriptive statistics & analysis

The finding of this study is organized in two parts. The first section focuses on respondent's information while second section on the awareness, problem and sources of information seeking behaviour. As mentioned, out of 200 questionnaires distributed to the respondent, only 150 were returned. The distribution of overall faculties was shown in Table 3. The results of this study were, therefore, considered representative of four (4) faculties at UiTM Johor.

7.3 Profile of respondents

The analysis was performed on gender, mode, year of studies and faculty. The result of gender of respondents shows that 74.4 % are female while 24.4 % respondents are female. From the total of respondents, 27.2% are from year one, followed by 56.8 % are from year two, while for the year three are 12.8% and year four are 3.2%. The results show that 47.2% are from Diploma holder, and 52.8% are from Degree's holder. The results also indicate that 37.6% of respondents are from Faculty of Information Management, followed by 33.6% from Faculty of Business & Management while 20% respondents from Faculty Computer & Mathematical Sciences and Faculty of Accountancy with a percentage 8.8 %. 7.4 Purpose of visit

Table 2 : Purpose of visit

Information need among the students is vary, and the purpose of student's visits to the library is also differing. Therefore, students were asked to identify and rank their purpose of visit to the library. The results in Table 2, shows that the top three which most 80.8 % of students visit the library with a purpose of conducive place for reading/study, followed by 76.8% of students of having availability of good services while 75.2% students visit library for completing their task and updating their knowledge. 73.6% respondents agreed to get a reference material and 45.6% for participate in library events.

Purpose of visit Strongly agree

Agree Disagree Stongly Disagree

Mean Std. Deviation

Conducive place for reading/study

12.8 80.8 4.6 2.4 3.04 .514

Availability of good services

16 76.8 6.4 8 3.08 .502

In completing task 16.8 75.2 7.2 8 3.08 .517 Updating knowledge 16.8 75.2 8 0 3.09 .492 Get a reference materials

22.4 73.6 4 0 3.18 .482

Participate in library events

8.8 45.6 42.4 3.2 2.60 .696



7.5 Awareness of Library Services Availability

Table 3: Awareness of Library Services Availability

Based on Table 3, respondents were asked to indicate the awareness of availability library services when they seek for information. It was found that 57.6 % of respondents moderately aware of availability of discussion room, 55.2% respondents moderately aware of theses collection room,52.8% use of digital collection,52% on reference desk,51.2% of library information skill class and 50.4% of availability of internet. Meanwhile, 48.8% of respondents also indicate that they are moderately aware of Online local and international database,48.0% of respondents on availability of a computer lab and 46.4 % respondents on audio visual material. However, 45.6% respondents remain for the same number of interlibrary loans, online library catalogue and seminar room.

Awareness Extremely aware

Moderately aware

Slightly

aware

Not at all

aware

Mean Std. Deviati

on

Availability of discussion room 12 57.6 20 10.4 2.71 .811 Theses collection room 4.8 55.2 22.4 17.6 2.47 .838 Use of digital collection 30.4 52.8 13.6 3.2 3.10 .749 Reference desk 10.4 52.0 28.8 8.8 2.64 .787 Library information skill class 10.4 51.2 27.2 11.2 2.61 .822 The availability of internet 32 50.4 12.8 4.8 3.10 .797 Online local and international database

19.2 48.8 20.0 12.0 2.75 .904

Availability of computer lab 33.6 48.0 13.6 4.8 3.10 .811 Audio-visual and multimedia collections

10.4 46.4 264 16.8 2.50 .895

Having Interlibrary loans(ILL) 4.8 45.6 20 29.6 2.26 .941 Online library catalogues 15.2 45.6 25.6 13.6 2.62 .904 Availability of seminar room 10.4 45.6 28.8 15.2 2.51 .876



7.6 Problem in Information Seeking Behaviour

Table 4 : Problem in Information Seeking Behaviour

Based on Table 4,

respondents were asked to indicate their problems in information seeking behaviour at the library. The results from Table 5 found that they agree with 60.8% of the respondents rated that information scattered in too many sources, 52.8% of respondents were lack of knowledge of library searching techniques and 51.2% of respondents do not know how to use e-resources. However, respondents were rated disagree for incomplete information materials with 50.4%; library staff unwilling provide good services with and materials outdated with 47.2%.

Problem Strongly agree

Agree Disagree Strongly Disagree

Mean Std. Deviation

Information scattered in too many sources

3.2 60.8 28.8 7.2 2.60 .672

Lack of knowledge in library searching techniques

8.0 52.8 30.4 8.8 2.60 .762

Don’t know how to use e-resources

6.4 51.2 34.4 8.0 2.56 .734

Lack of training in information use skills

5.6 49.6 35.2 9.6 2.51 .747

Do not know about attending information skill class

8.8 46.4 32.0 12.8 2.51 .829

Difficulty in accessing international information sources

5.6 44.0 38.4 12.0 2.43 .776

Materials are not available

6.4 43.2 41.6 8.8 2.47 .747

Lack of knowledge in using the library

4.0 43.2 38.4 14.4 2.37 .778

Library staff are unwilling to provide good services

3.2 41.6 47.2 8.0 2.30 .696

Some of information materials are outdated

3.2 41.6 47.2 8 2.40 .684

Do not know how to use the OPAC

4.0 40.0 40.8 15.2 2.33 .781

Incomplete information materials

2.4 36.0 50.4 11.2 2.40 .684



7.7 Sources of Information

Table 5: Sources of Information

Based on Table 6, Lecture's notes were ranked as the most important source for the respondents when doing their information seeking (mean = 3.19, std. Deviation = .644), close followed by textbooks (mean=3.18std. Deviation = .545) and article journal (mean=3.16std. Deviation = .588). Lecturer's handout and library books were ranked 4th and 5th with score mean of 3.14. Manual/Study guides, newspaper cuttings, seminar/conference paper, AV materials and dissertations were considered less important for the purpose of seeking information.

8. DISCUSSION

Whitmire (2001) reported that primarily students use the library as a place to study which also can be supported by the findings result in UiTM Johor that majority of the undergraduate's students tend to physically visit the library for having the conducive place for reading/study. Daily activities of undergraduate students in a library were carried out according to their information need and these needs differ from others or by group. Studied carried out by Calinnan (2004) found that much higher percentage of final year students carrying out all activities includes of leisure reading, browsing the shelves compared to first year students and printed sources such as textbooks and lecturer handouts were preferably be as information use by the both sample groups. Similarly with the findings, it is also shown that undergraduate students of UiTM Johor also heavily depend on lecturer notes and textbook. As supported by the Shaheen & Gava (2000), found that Law Faculty members of IIUM use variety

Ranking Sources N Mean Std. Deviation

1 Lecture notes

125 3.19 .644

2 Textbooks

125 3.18 .545

3 Article journal

125 3.16 .588

4 Lecturer’s handouts

125 3.14 .656

5 Library books

125 3.14 .573

6 Manual/Study Guides

125 2.82 .723

7 Newspaper cuttings

125 2.55 .767

8 Seminar/conference paper

125 2.50 .819

9 AV Materials

125 2.39 .938

10 Dissertations

125 2.30 .843



sources of information in when seeking for the information but then, they were most prefer to have first consulted from their personal collection. It is also noted that the awareness of library services of undergraduates of UiTM Johor are moderately aware of using room services provided library compared to the other services such as interlibrary loan and online catalogue. As also mentioned by the Shaheen & Gava (2000) small percentage number of respondents did visit to the other libraries due to the not aware of interlibrary loan services provided by the IIUM library. Even though awareness of using online catalogue was rated low, it doesn't mean that the respondents do not aware at all of it. This can be supported by the finding of sources of information that respondents also seek for the journal and library book that they also retrieve it using the online catalogue.

Through the findings, it is clearly indicated that the respondent agree the information are scattered in too many sources as their main problem in seeking information seems that nowadays there has variety choices of format. The internet sources, for example, will be the greatest challenges for the respondents who most of them are GenerationY (Gen Y) found that they tend to overrate their abilities when it comes to find information on the internet because they are heavily relying upon television, the internet, videos/DVDs and other primarily visual sources which they thought these are the most effective and efficient sources as it is according to Weiler (2004). It was also mentioned in Herring's (2001) study, shows that 73 % of faculty accept student use the internet sources in their assignment with no criteria or limit attached regarding the accuracy or quality of the Web Sites used. Moreover, through finding by Young &Von Seggeren (2002) stated that students prefer use information through Internet because of time-saving and accuracy is not a concerning factor. Lack of knowledge in library searching techniques and do not know about using e-resource also among the highest problem for students in seeking the information. In Msr. Saufi &Raja Abdullah (2010) indicate that UTHM students also find that they do not comfortable in seek information when there has scattered information and time consuming are the main factor of their problem while student also rated they have faced difficulties in accessing international information sources due to lack of knowledge in using BOOLEAN or Truncation techniques to access the needed information even though they know how to use OPAC. Based on the finding in this study, lack of training also was a factor on respondent does not know using e-resources that already include in the Library Website and these need students to explore by themselves.

9. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE RECOMMENDATION

According to Weiler (2004), information seeking is a highly subjective process, and need among the students also are differ. Although this study was conducted in small sampling, but it is significance for the library especially in determining the awareness of library services and identify the problems of information seeking behaviour undergraduates students in UiTM. From this study, it is revealed that library still maintain as a conducive place for students to study/to read and remaining library as a place for get reference materials, services and update knowledge were the highly rated. Nevertheless, library should conduct more activities or events for student to be participated so that students will be more aware of the library services and activities such as availability of reference services, interlibrary loan services, digital collection, etc. The result also shows that student did not have any problems with the library material as they found most of the library material is update and students also were rated library staff provides a good services to them. By discovering the part of the problem in seeking information, undergraduates students in UiTM Johor just have a lack of basic skills on how to use library resources where library need to focus on it. In a part of the source of information, to be considered Gen Y depend on the nearest available sources they have rather than seek information that take their time to read and



explore. It is suggested and recommends that library should conduct events involving students and faculties so that there has cooperation in order to educate the library users. More than that, undergraduate's students are classified as Gen Y where they are visual learners and it's a time where hands on exercise should be included in order to hold student interest and increase information retention that supported by Weiler, A (2004) finding. The usage of reference services should be expanded so that undergraduate students especially first-year student can easily get assistance to direct them to the accurate library resources whether in printed, non-printed or digital format. Having information skill class is the best practices used by most all academic libraries but it is highly recommended to the library for conducting additional skill class such as bibliographic instruction class or library searching techniques class for the students especially and compulsory it for the first and final year students. Based on all the finding result, it's can be stated that most of the undergraduate students of UiTM Johor lack of basic skill in use and seek information using library resources but they are good in using library services provided by them. Cross studies with other faculties will be conducted as a further research in determining the pattern of information seeking behaviour among the undergraduate's students in UiTM and determining the motivation, critical thinking and learning theory on information seeking behaviour among Gen Y also is highly recommended to pursue the next research.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors express sincere thanks to Perpustakaan Tun Dr Ismail library staff for their support and constructive contribution in this study.

This paper is under UiTM Johor Reseach Grantt Session 1/2014 (UJRG 2014)

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