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INFORMATION SKILLS COURSE (GXEX1401): A SURVEY OF ITSEFFECTIVENESS AS PERCEIVED nv STUDENTS

Chan Sai Noi & Zaharah RamlyResearch and Academic Services Division

University of Malaya .

Abstract: The Information Skills Programme was formally introduced as acompulsory one-credit university course to all first year students pursuing anundergraduate degree in the University of Malaya in the 1998/1999 academicsession. The objective of the Course is to equip students with basic information skillsand techniques that will equip them for lift-long learning. This report presents theviews of some 1000 students on the usefulness of the topics taught in the Course inrelation to searching information in the Library and to their learning as well as theirassignments. The findings from the survey indicate that students in the first year aremore concerned with locating materials prescribed in their reading lists than withsearching for additional reference materials from periodical indexes or abstracts,whether printed or electronic. Almost 90% of the students rank OPAC as useful,followed by Search Strategy (85%) and Project Work (79.75%).

Abstrak: Kursus Kemahiran Maklumatdiperkenalkan sebagai kursusuniversiti kepada semua pelajar tahunpertama yang mengikuti ijazahpertama di Universiti Malayasemenjak sesi akademik 1998/1999.Objektif kursus ini adalah untukmelengkapkan semua pelajar dengankemahiran maklumat dan teknikpencarian yang akan menyediakanmereka dalam pembelajaransepanjang umur. Laporan mtmengemukakan pendapat lebih kurang1000 pelajar samada topik-topik yangdiajar dalam Kursus bermanfaat danmembantu mereka dalam pencarianmaklumat di Perpustakaan dan dalam

pembelajaran serta tugasan di Universiti.Maklumbalas dari soalselidikmenunjukkan bahawa pelajar tahunpertama lebih menumpukan kepadapencarian bahan dari senarai

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KANI>l:NGAN/CONTENTS

Information Skills Course (aXEX 140 I): ASurvey of Its Effectiveness As Perceived byStudents

Tesis dan Latihan Ilrniah/Theses and Academic Exercises

Kertas Kerja Persidangan/Conference Papers

Laporan Persidangan/Conference Report

Maklumat Terkini Pengkornputeran/Update on Computerization

Hal Ehwal Kakitangan/Staff Matters

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55

60

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bacaan mereka untuk mendapatkan buku-buku teks yang disyorkan oleh pensyarahmereka dari mendapatkan bacaan rujukan tambahan daripada indeks dan abstrakjurnal, samada bercetak atau elektronik seperti pangkalan data CD-ROM Oleh itu,topik-topik yang dianggap sebagai bermanfaat adalah OPAC (90%), diikuti denganStrategi Pencarian (85%) dan Projek (79. 75%)

Introduction

The Information Skills Course orKursus Kemahiran Maklumat(GXEXI401) as it is known, was firstintroduced as a compulsory one credituniversity course to all first yearstudents pursuing an undergraduatedegree in the University of Malaya inthe 1998/1999 academic session. Themain objective of the Course is toteach students basic information skillsand techniques that are critical for life-long learning and resource-basedteaching. Students are also taughtcertain basic IT skills which wouldenable them to use and exploitinformation from the OPAC, indexesand abstracts on CD-ROM format,online databases as well as the Internet.

As this is the first time that aformalised information skills course isconducted by the Library, there is aneed to evaluate the Course. Resultsof the final examination and thecoursework undertaken by students forthe course, indicated that a majority ofstudents have benefited from it.Professional staff at the ReferenceDesk also reported that enquiries onOPAC made by University of Malayastudents was minimal. However it wasfelt that there is a need to know whatstudents think about the Course. Aquestionnaire was therefore designedand distributed to a number ofstudents. Its purpose was to getstudents' feedback as to theeffectiveness and usefulness of theCourse as well as the effectiveness ofthe facilitators.

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Methodology

Students were picked at random to answerthe questionnaire which was distributedduring the last lecture of the Semester Thequestionnaire (Appendix I) was distribifled' .to students at the end of Second Semesterof the 1999/2000 academic session and thefirst semester of the 2000/2001 session.

The total number of students registered forthe course in the second semester,1999/2000 session was 2652, the majorityof whom were students from the scienceand technology faculties, namely theFaculty of Science, Faculty of ComputerScience and Information Technology,Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of BuiltEnvironment, Faculty of Medicine,Faculty of Dentistry and Sports Centre.Out of this, 577 students (27.8%) werepicked at random to answer thequestionnaire. The same questionnaire wasalso distributed to 430 students (14.5%)from a total of 3017 who registered fromthe first semester, 2000/2001 academicsession. The latter comprised largelystudents in the arts and social sciencefaculties namely the Academy of IslamicStudies, Academy of Malay Studies,Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences,Faculty of Economics and Administration,Faculty of Business and Accounting,Faculty of Education, Faculty ofLanguages and Linguistics and CulturalCentre.The questionnaire consisted of 3 sections.Section 1 collected data on studentsranking of the usefulness of the giventopics for information searching andlearning, and their assignments. For eachtopic, students were asked to rank it bymarking one of the 5 indicators, rangingfrom 'Very Useful' to 'Not Very Useful'.

In Section 2, students were asked toindicate the effectiveness of theirfacilitators, from 'Very Effective' to''Very Ineffective', and in the lastsection, they were requested to givetheir comments and suggestions for thecourse. This report will discuss the firsttwo sections only.

Findings

The findings of the questionnaire arepresented in tables and charts. For ease ofdiscussion, respondents in the SecondSemester, 199912000academic session arereferred to as science students whilerespondents in the First Semester,200012001 academic session as socialscience students.

Topic Very Useful Useful Moderate

No,

OPAC 279

Search Strategy 202Reference 95Sources

A& I in CD- 80ROM

Citation Style 95

Project Work 156

Table 1:Response of Science and Technology Students To All Topics

Topic Very Useful Useful Moderate Not Useful

No.

OPAC 242

Search Strategy 171Reference 90Sources

A & I in CD- 96ROM

Citation Style 117

Project Work 165

Table 2: Response of Arts and Social Science Students To All Topics

TotalRespondents

TotalRespondents

3

574

574

571

573

576

577

420

424

421

429

430

429

OPAC

This topic is covered in 3 lecturesduring which students were taught howto access OPAC and search by Author,Title, Subject, Author Keyword, TitleKeyword, Subject Keyword,Keywords, Expert Keywords as well asby Call Number. They were also taughthow to interpret the bibliographic aswell as holdings information of eachrecord.

The following graph representsstudents' view on the usefulness ofOPAC:

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-.....,. -~-Graph 1 : Usefulness of OPAC

The graph shows that a large majorityof the science students in Semester 2,1999/2000 found OPAC useful; 279students (48.6%) found OPAC veryuseful, 242 (42.7%) useful, while 8.5%of these respondents found itmoderately useful. None reported thatthey did not find it at all useful.Majority of the social science studentswho responded shared similaropinions; 242 students (57.6%) foundOPAC very useful, 152 (36.2%) usefuland 26 (6.2%) moderately useful. None

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also indicated that OPAC was not useful atall.

Search StrategyStudents were taught techniques tostrategise their search by understandingand identifying the concepts in their searchtopic, finding keywords and constructing asearch statement using the relevantBoolean operators such as 'AND', 'OR'and 'NOT'.

Graph 2 indicates the views of students on .this topic.

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Graph 2: Usefulness of Search Strategy

According to the students of bothsemesters, Search Strategy was useful.However the ranking was lower thanOPAC. Two hundred and two sciencestudents (35.2%) ranked it as 'VeryUseful' while 291 (50.7%) of them rankedit is 'Useful'. Only 3 (0.5%) ranked it as'Not Useful'. The response of the socialscience students was similar to the sciencestudents. One hundred and seventy-onerespondents (40.3%) considered SearchStrategy as 'Very Useful' while 193(45.5%) said it was 'Useful' while only 1(0.2 %) felt it was 'Not Useful'. None of

the students in both groups rankedSearch Strategy as 'Not Very Useful'."

Reference Sources

Students were also taught how to useprinted reference sources such asdictionaries, encyclopedias, indexesand . abstracts to locate information.Although the number of electronicdatabases are increasing, it was feltthat the Knowledge of printed sourcesis still important and that studentsshould be made aware of and learnt touse these important reference sources.

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Graph 3: Usefulness of ReferenceSources

The graph shows that both science andsocial science students perceived thistopic as useful though not as 'VeryUseful' as the earlier two topics. Only95 (16.6%) science students and 90(21.4%) social science studentsthought it was 'Very Useful', while233 (40.8%) science students and 187(44.4%) social science students rankedit 'Useful'. A large number of students,

225 (39.4%) science students and 137(32.5%) science students had also ratedthis topic as ' Moderately Useful'. Morescience students ranked this topic as 'NotUseful' {I3, 2.3%) and 'Not Very Useful'(5, 0.9%) as compared to 6 (1.4%) and 1(0.2%) social SCIence studentsrespectively.

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Graph 4: Usefulness of CD-ROM

Here students were taught to identify titlesof indexes and abstracts in CD-ROMformat which were relevant to theirrespective disciplines as well to search forinformation using techniques which theyhad learnt in Search Strategy. Majority ofthe science students viewed this topic as'Moderately Useful' (272, 47.5%), whileonly a smaller group (181, 24.6%) rankedit as 'Useful' and only 80 (14%) as 'VeryUseful'. Eight science students consideredit 'Not very Useful'. The social studentsplaced greater importance on this topic,with 96 (22.4%) ranking it as 'VeryUseful' and 187 (43.6%) as 'Useful', 134(31.2%) as 'Moderately Useful', 10 (2.3%)as "Not Useful and 2 (0.5%) as 'Not VeryUseful'.

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To round up the course, students weretaught how to cite the resources thatthey have located and used in theirassignments. For the purpose of thecourse, they were taught either theAPA (American PsychologicalAssociation) or MLA (ModemLanguage Association) Citation Style.

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Graph 5: Usefulness of Citation Style

The above graph shows that themajority of the students perceivedCitation Style as 'Useful' (46.5% ofscience students and 47.2% of socialscience students). Ninety-five sciencestudents (16.5%) and 117 socialscience students (27.2%) ranked it as'Very Useful' with 198 sciencestudents (34.4%) and 104 (24.2%)social' science students ranking it as'Moderately Useful'. More sciencestudents thought it as 'Not Useful (14)and "Not Very Useful' (1) ascompared to only 6 social sciencestudents who thought it was 'NotUseful' .

The above findings show that studentsunderstood the importance ofrecording and citing the materials they

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used III a consistent manner. Theyperceived the importance of properdocumentation style in their assignments.

Project/Course Work

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Graph 6: Project! Coursework

Students were asked to complete a numberof assignments or a piece of project work.The purpose of the assignments/projectwork was to ensure that students practicewhat they have learnt. The graph showsthat a majority of the students concurredthat they found this useful (48.4% ofscience students and 45.7% of socialscience students) only one science and onesocial science student felt that theAssignments/ Project Work was 'Not VeryUseful'.

Evaluation of FacilitatorsStudents were also asked to evaluate theirfacilitators. Since the slides and contentswere prepared by a team of librarians,students were only asked to evaluate thepresentation styles of their facilitators.Graph 6 shows the feedback of students.

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Graph 7: Effectiveness of FacilitatorsPresentation

Looking at the graph, we can concludethat generally the students felt thattheir facilitators were effectiveinstructors, with 189 out of 373respondents (50.67%) of social sciencestudents and 330 out of 518respondents (63.71 %) science studentssaying that their facilitators were'Effective' .

ConclusionThe findings of the questionnairereveal students' perception of the valueof information resources in theLibrary. As first year students, all ofthem need to use the OPAC to locate

materials in their reading lists and tosearch the relevant books for theirassignments/ essays. As such, both thescience and social science stream studentsrated very highly the usefulness andeffectiveness of OPAC. Since at year one,they were not required by their lecturers tolocate information from periodicals orother sources other· than prescribedtextbooks, the value placed on printedreference sources such 'as indexes andabstracts was lower. Similarly for the samereason, students did not rate CD-ROMdatabases as very useful. However theyconsidered the learning of 'Citation style asvery useful. Perhaps they were aware thatthe knowledge and skill of preparing listsof references would enhance the quality oftheir assignments.The findings supported the views of thelibrarians that students rely too much onprescribed texts, and do not maximise theusage of resources that are available in theLibrary. Teaching staff are urged toencourage resource-based learningamongst their students by making itnecessary for them to use and citematerials other than their textbooks,including periodical articles, CD-ROMand online databases, and insisting thatthese materials be cited consistently. Withacademic staff support andencouragement, we are confident thatstudents will learn and apply what theyhave been taught with greater enthusiasm.

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Appendix I

Soalselidik Mengenai Kursus GXEX1401

Tujuan soalselidik ini adalah untuk menilai keberkesanan Kursus Kemahiran Maklumat GXEX1401bagi meningkatkan kualiti kursus ini. Maklumbalas daripada saudaralsaudari diperlukan bagi kamimenyelidik samada kursus ini telah membantu anda dalam pencarian maklumat di Perpustakaan dandalam pembelajaran serta tugasan-tugasan di Universiti. (The purpose of the Questionnaire is to obtainfeedback from students as to their perception of the usefulness of the Information Skills Course inequipping them with information searching skills for learning and course work)

Kerjasama yang anda berikan dengan menjawab soalselidik ini sangat dihargai. Maklumbalas yanganda berikan adalah sulit.

•I. Senarai di bawah adalah topik-topik yang telah dipelajari dalam Kursus GXEX1401. Nyat'!karf •setakat mana pengajaran mengenai topik terse but memberi manafaat kepada anda. Tandakan ( ./ )pada ruang yang berkenaan. (Please tick the appropriate column)

SangatSederhana Tidak Sangat Tidak

Manfaat Manfaat(Moderately Manfaat Manfaat

(Very (Useful) (Not veryUseful) useful) (Not useful)

useful)

1. Penggunaan Katalog Berkomputer(OPAC)

2. Strategi Pencarian (SearchStrategies)

Penggunaan bahan-bahan referensi3. (kamus, ensiklopedia, indeks &

abstrak) (Reference Source)

4. Penggunaan pangkalan data CD-ROM (CD-ROM Database)

5. Gaya mencatat rujukan (CitationStyle)

6. Projek (Project Work)

II. Pada pandangan anda, bagaimanakah kualiti penyampaian fasilitator kumpulan anda ketika beliaumengajar kursus ini. (Please evaluate the effectiveness of your facilitator)

Sederhana Sangat TidakSangat Berkesan Berkesan

(Moderately Tidak Berkesan Berkesan(Very effective) (Effective) (Not effective) (Not veryeffective)

effective)

III. Sila beri komen dan cadangan anda mengenai kursus ini:-(Please give your comments and suggestions for the course)

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