Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Date of this Version
Spring 5-15-2021
Abstract
Information literacy (IL) provides essential proficiency for academics and research in the networked digital information landscape. The present study is an empirical assessment of information literacy competency (ILC) levels of researchers in social sciences from varied frames of reference i.e. gender, age groups, periods of research, subjects and universities. The data collected from 520 researchers were processed and analyzed using various techniques of descriptive and inferential statistics to identify IL competent and incompetent researchers on different variables. The descriptive statistics included frequency distribution, percentage distribution, etc. and was aided by computing mean, standard deviation, and range. Inferential statistics consisted of various tools like One-way analysis of variance, F-ratio, and Post-Hoc test using a list of significant differences (LSD). On the competency scale around 81.5% of the total researchers consisting of 9.6% ‘Outstanding’, 26.5% ‘Excellent’, 25.0% ‘Very Good’ and 20.4% ‘Good’ were found IL competent and rest 18.5% of researchers comprising 11.2% ‘Baseline’, 5.0% ‘Minimal’ and 2.3% ‘Very Low’ lacked similar competency. The study suggests measures for improvement in current IL practices to further improve researchers’ ILC.