Undergraduate Students' Information Literacy Behaviour in Chulalongkorn University

Abstract

This paper examines the ways in which Thai undergraduate students in Chulalongkorn University find, evaluate, manage, and apply the needed information for doing their course-related assignments and everyday life research. The information literacy behaviour studied includes the undergraduates’ use of information resources, evaluation of information, research styles, and difficulties encountered during research practices. The survey instrument originally developed by Project Information Literacy of the University of Washington Information School was used as the basis for designing a questionnaire of this study. The questionnaire, then, was distributed to sophomores, juniors, and seniors enrolling at Chulalongkorn University. The sample for the student survey was 378 respondents from 18 faculties. Data collection was completed by the end of March 2011. Overall a 95% response rate was achieved. The findings of this study indicate that the most frequent source of information the majority of the undergraduates used for their course-related assignments and everyday life research is search engines. Most undergraduates always pay attention to credibility of library materials and web content when evaluating information in hand. Regarding the survey respondents’ research styles, they usually make action plans and create search terms before writing term-papers. They also have problems with deciding what to do at the early stage of research process, narrowing down a topic, and determining credibility of information resources.

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