Information literacy skills among incoming first-year undergraduate students at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa in Kenya

Abstract

Information literacy skills among university students have become a necessity rather than the norm. With the increase of information resources, the need for information skills among university students is important for their continued access to, and retrieval of, information. The purpose of this research was to investigate information literacy skills and competencies among incoming first-year undergraduate students in institutions of higher learning in Kenya, with special reference to the Catholic University of Eastern Africa. The objectives of the study were; to identify the types and formats of resources that incoming undergraduate students are aware of, to determine whether the incoming undergraduates are aware of search strategies for both print and electronic/online resources, to determine whether incoming undergraduate students possess basic information technology skills, to find out whether incoming undergraduate students know information retrieval tools and their use, and to determine whether incoming students are aware of intellectual property and copyrighted materials and their ethical use. The study adopted a quantitative approach and used the case study research method. The study targeted first year incoming undergraduate students at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa for the academic year 2013/2014. 137 incoming undergraduate students participated in the study. Data was collected by using self-administered questionnaires. Quantitative data was coded and analysed by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). Qualitative data generated form open-ended questions was presented in narrative form under respective subheadings. The finding of the study observed that: (a) Incoming first-year students have limited knowledge of strategies used to search for information. (b) The incoming first-year undergraduate students at the Catholic university of Eastern Africa do possess computer skills in applications such as the use of the internet and its applications (e.g. social networking sites and the World Wide Web) as well as the word-processing applications such as (Microsoft Office and Microsoft Word) and statistical applications such as SPSS. (c) Majority of incoming undergraduate university students are not familiar with the various retrieval tools and their applications. (d) The incoming first-year undergraduate students are familiar with both electronic and printed information resources. (e) A significant number of students were not aware what constitutes primary resources and secondary sources. (f) Incoming first-year undergraduate students exhibited little knowledge of issues relating to intellectual property rights and copyright. Several recommendations have been made based on the findings of the study. One of the recommendations is that the university library mandated with offering information literacy instruction to incoming students should adopt several incentives aimed at encouraging the students to attend library orientation. Another recommendation is to integrate the information literacy training with the normal university curriculum to become a credit-earning course for all incoming students. The university library should also carry out a needs assessment on information literacy training to help determine the existing gaps in the current information literacy programme. The programme should also be tailored to help in emerging issues such electronic plagiarism of information resources. The study further recommends a longitudinal study to determine whether students joining the university are able to gain information literacy skills over a period of time.