Assessment of Information Literacy Programmes in Tertiary Institutions in Ghana A Case Study of University of Education, Winneba and University of Cape Coast
Date
2018-07
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of Ghana
Abstract
This study assesses the information literacy skills of students of University of Education, Winneba and University of Cape Coast in the Central Region. The main objectives of the study are to determine the students’ skills to access and use information; gather evidence on how students evaluate information; ascertain the students’ awareness of legal and ethical implication of information usage; to investigate barriers to access information by the students and finally to assess the teaching methods employed in teaching. The study employs the multiple case study approach with interviews and questionnaires. Questionnaires were distributed to one hundred and thirty-eight (138) students in the two institutions which represent 10% of the total population. An interview was also conducted with the lecturers of the two universities. A total of sixteen (16) interviewees were used. The questionnaire data was analyzed with the use of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) in line with the objectives of the study. The interviews were analyzed under the thematic areas of the study. The findings of the study show that students to a very large extent were familiar with the various types of information. It was further revealed in the study that students lacked the competencies in using wildcard/truncation and Boolean operators. Some of the barriers to the effective use of information include students not getting the needed materials from the library, lack of support from library staff and lack of information retrieval skills. Other challenges heighted in this include inadequate credit hours, insufficient lecture halls and ICT laboratories. The study therefore recommends among other things, the acquisition of more teaching and learning materials, increase in the credit hours, increase in infrastructure, provision of functional ICT laboratories, employing of more lecturers, making the programme stand-alone course in UEW and placing more emphasis on search strategies to help improve on the programme.
Description
MPhil.
Keywords
Information Literacy, Tertiary Institutions, University of Education, University of Cape Coast