THE USE OF INFORMATION RETRIEVAL TOOLS BY THE POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS OF HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTES OF PAKISTAN
Liaquat Ali Rahoo1+ --- Muhammad Ali Khan Nagar2---Arabella Bhutto3
1,2,3Mehran University of Engineering & Technology, Jamshoro, Pakistan
ABSTRACT
The research examined the use of Information Retrieval Tools (IRTs) by the post graduate students of Mehran University of Engineering and Technology. The research used descriptive survey and was carried out over a period of six months between August 2016 and January, 2017. The sample size comprise of 2,000 postgraduate students which were randomly selected from different faculties/institutes and were served with copies of the questionnaire. A total of 1,970 copies of useable questionnaire were retrieved which represent 98.5% response rate. The responses were collated and analyzed using frequency counts and percentages. The outcome shows that respondents make use of IRTs for a variety of purposes and that university library’s user education and information literacy program forms the key source of their knowledge of IRTs’ usage. Through it, it can be safely concluded that the university library plays major role in assisting the students to make use of IRTs. Secondary findings show that the main IRTs made use of by the respondents is the Internet Search Engines. Furthermore findings of the study also revealed that the use of the tools has impacted positively on their social and academic life and has also enhanced their global knowledge of different issues. The major constraint to student’s use of the tools is that of Internet fluctuations. The paper concludes with recommendations on the need to give training on the use of IRTs to students.
Keywords:Information, Retrieval, IRT Tools, University, Mehran.
ARTICLE HISTORY: Received:11 October 2018, Revised:16 November 2018, Accepted:31 December 2018, Published:23 January 2019
1. INTRODUCTION
Information is found by post graduate students in the University libraries, information centers, and computer labs with support of emergence technologies. Emergence technologies have carried many alternate for the access to academic information for the academic development in the field of teaching and learning.
Students can benefit from higher education electronic sources, including abstraction and indexing of the journals, to compile information required for higher education resources, including abstraction and indexing journals that can be used by students to gather current information required for research. All sources of information are available only in print, but in electronic form. It is now available from various types of sources, such as CDs, Internet, OPAC, e-books and electronic journals, through the use of appropriate search strategies, including Boolean operators in the search engines.
This is a huge amount of information in electronic and paper form abounds with tools for information retrieval (ERTS) for clear information retrieval. These tools have become a widely used service and have become an essential tool for finding information. Retrieving information means that development, information, and extraction of content from different sources of information files. Wikipedia also identifies access and activities to collect information from sources of information and sources of information retrieval. This also shows that many information retrieval systems at universities and public offices (tools) provide access to books, magazines and other documents. From the above, information retrieval tools (EARTs) and so on; the device can be accessed from a variety of sources or applications through information.
Retrieval tools for information retrieval are critical to educational outcomes. The skills required for selective recovery stored in the document, rather than the possible accuracy and adequacy of the information is not relevant to the study of students of all information. To overcome the problem of information retrieval, students may need skills, including information retrieval skills, and operational skills of research and research strategies, making them a simple task in the process of retrieving information together (Jansen and Pooch, 2000).
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
The use of infrared can be traced in electronic form since the 1960s that manage full-text and the multimedia document is indexed electronically in a set of models and systems (Ferber, 1996).
He studied the prospects and challenges of information retrieval by the University of Ghana, Lijon students. The results show that students were fully aware of the information retrieval tools and accordingly College students belong to their use (Nazim, 2008). However, the use of information retrieval tools to get the link the information was problematic with all colleges. The main reasons for difficulties in retrieving information The Internet is frequently disrupted, and students are not available on campus and are not available Training programs for the information seekers of the college (Ariyapala and Edzan, 2002).
The behavior of searching for information from Internet users which shows that academic staff spent more time online than Students and research scientists, through the search engines and which like Wikipedia Magazines online and Databases are their preferred sources of information (Martzoukou, 2008). Other research has similarly shown success Library users to access materials, especially through electronic retrieval tools to meet their information needs in an academic library (Ferber, 1996; Jegede and Owolabi, 2005).
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The population of this research study was the postgraduate students of all faculties of Mehran University of Engineering & Technology, Jamshoro. The postgraduate students consist of Master of Engineering, Master of Science, Master of Philosophy and Doctoral students were enrolled in the University. The sample size from the total population, in the study selected population is 155 postgraduate students from all the faculties of the university. For primary data collection questionnaire as instrument was used, questionnaire personality distributed and Google survey form was also used for data collection.
4. DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
This study presented the results of a survey on the use of Information Retrieval Tools (IRTs) by post graduate students of selected departments of Mehran University of Engineering and Technology.
(a) Gender Wise Data Collection
Figure-1. Gender Status |
In the research study from total population of sample, 63% were male and 37% were female were responding in the study.
(b) Qualifications of Samples
Figure-2. Qualification |
In the qualification of samples there were 90% of respondent from Master program and 10% from the Ph.D. programs of the different departments.
(c) What is/are the Source(s) of IRTs Knowledge and Skills you learned?
| Area | No |
Per% |
| ICT Centers | 17 |
10.9677 |
| Formal Training | 29 |
18.7097 |
| Society | 44 |
28.3871 |
| Training from Library | 21 |
13.5484 |
| Self-taught | 30 |
19.3548 |
| University’s ICT training program | 14 |
9.03226 |
| Total | 155 |
100% |
Source: Primary Data |
There is maximum ratio of population is listen from the friends about the information regarding the IRT knowledge and skills.
(d) Which Type of IRTs you use?
Figure-3. type of IRT used |
The maximum useful type of IRT tool is card and book catalog 38%. Very minimum percentage of 9% is online databases used by students of postgraduate of this university.
(e) Information Resources Usage rating as Better by you?
Figure-4. IRT Tools |
Maximum useful tools by the postgraduate of this university are internet search engine is 54% and minimum ratio of used tool is online database.
(f) Purpose of using IRTs?
| Purpose of IRT | No |
Per % |
| Academic and Research | 61 |
39.3548 |
| Admission opportunities | 17 |
10.9677 |
| Funds, grants and scholarship | 18 |
11.6129 |
| Entertainment (sports, news, movies, songs, etc.) | 17 |
10.9677 |
| General (travel, tour, weather forecast, etc) | 10 |
6.45161 |
| Social networking (face book, twitter, two, e-mail, newsgroup, etc.) | 32 |
20.6452 |
| Total | 155 |
100 |
Source: Primary Data |
Maximum 39% purpose for the use of IRT is Academic and research purpose and minimum ration of IRT tool used for General Purpose which is 6%.
(g) Impact of using IRTs on your Daily Life and Work Performance?
| Impact of IRT on the Life | No |
Per % |
| Hastened and enhanced academic work | 24 |
15.4839 |
| Better and well connected with opportunities globally | 23 |
14.8387 |
| Well-informed and better-educated on happenings across the globe | 48 |
30.9677 |
| Social and educational networking with friends across the globe | 60 |
38.7097 |
| Total | 155 |
100 |
Source: Primary Data |
Impact of IRT tools on the daily life of students is social and education networking with friends across the globe 38% is a maximum ratio. And very minimum ration is 15% that impact on the life which is better and well connected with opportunities globally.
(h) Problems Faced During Accessing IRTs?
| Problems face during use IRT | No |
Per % |
| It is difficult to deal with the large amount of information available | 33 |
21.2903 |
| It is difficult to categorize my information needs | 24 |
15.4839 |
| It is difficult to know where to find relevant information | 21 |
13.5484 |
| It is difficult to know how to access the information sources | 12 |
7.74194 |
| It is difficult to find the information that relevant to my search subject | 23 |
14.8387 |
| Lack of adequate skills and knowledge | 16 |
10.3226 |
| It is difficult to understand the information found | 17 |
10.9677 |
| Financial constraints | 9 |
5.80645 |
| Total | 155 |
100 |
Source: Primary Data |
In the use of IRT tools by the students face many problems so but the maximum 21% the problems is faced by the students is a large amount of data is available so they cannot organized it in proper way.
5. CONCLUSION
- Majority of the students face the problems in large available information amount on the internet so they cannot access properly.
- Students need more training for electronic resources used for academic development.
- Library services information trainings should be organized by the library.
- Faculty members should be encouraging the student to use the tools for information gathering.
- The most use full retrieval tools is internet search engine.
- OPAC is an important tool to use in the library to find out the available resources those resources may be an electronic or hard format
- In the study majority of postgraduate students were interested to use the internet resources for the searching of information.
Funding: This study received no specific financial support. |
Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. |
Contributors/Acknowledgement: All authors contributed equally to the conception and design of the study. |
REFERENCES
Ariyapala, P. and N. Edzan, 2002. Foreign postgraduate students and the online catalogue at the university of Malaya library. Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, 7(1): 1-11.
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Jansen, B.J. and U. Pooch, 2000. A review of web searching studies and a framework for future research. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 52(3): 236–246.
Jegede, P.O. and J. Owolabi, 2005. Effects of professional status, subject discipline and computer access on computer attitudes among teacher educators in Nigerian colleges of education. Information Technology Journal, 4(2): 158-162. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3923/itj.2005.158.162 .
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