Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Document Type
Article
Abstract
A study was undertaken to examine undergraduate students’ skills in Information literacy among undergraduate students at Mzumbe University. The objective of this study was to investigate the information literacy levels among undergraduate students. The study used a mixed method approach design using cross-sectional and case study. The study distributed 210 questionnaires to undergraduate students using stratified sampling followed by systematic random sampling to select individual students in year 1, 2 and 3 from faculty of law, faculty of social sciences and faculty of science and technology.
Data were analyzed using SPSS software V.16. The study found that most students (84.7%) knew how to identify information they retrieved through different tools. Moreover, a greater number of respondents (62.7%) had the ability to evaluate their retrieved information using internet domain. Also, quite a good number of them (74.7%) were skilled in terms of citations and referencing using APA style. In terms of awareness and utilization of subscribed e-resources, 76% of respondents were found to be aware and identify e-resources subscribed by the library using reference resources, 55% use article databases, 64% use search engines and 50% use catalogue. From the study findings, it was plausibly concluded that the majority of the undergraduate students are information literate when it comes to information identification, evaluation and a few had little knowledge on citations and referencing. The study recommends that information literacy should be integrated into the research method course that is offered by every department.