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Indian Journal of Library and Information Science

Volume  13, Issue 2, May-August 2019, Pages 61-69
 

Original Article

What are the Information Retrieval Skill Issues and What are the Attitudes Towards Information Literacy in Women Faculty of Engineering Colleges in West Tamil Nadu?

MA Deepamala, Ananthanarayana Sharma

1Village Librarian, Tamil Nadu Government Public Libraries Department, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. 2Ranjit Gupta, Center for Documentation of Action Research, Sholavandan Agaraharam, Sholavandan Post, Vadipatti Taluka, Madurai District, Tamil Nadu 625214, India

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21088/ijlis.0973.9548.13219.1

Abstract

Context: In Western Tamil Nadu, 36% of all faculty in engineering colleges are women. These engineering colleges had contributed many engineers to the globalized corporate Information Technology (IT) industry. Women faculty using IT for teaching of Science, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics, (STEM) subjects, formed the social and technological context. Aims: The study framed 12 Null hypothesis (H0) statements related to their opinion on information technology in their research and teaching: and 36 Null hypothesis (H0) statements related to their self perception in specific information literacy (IL) skills. Settings and Design: The study methodology used a questionnaire instrument, to investigate attitudes towards Information Literacy (IL) and its use for classroom teaching and research. Methods and Material: The Cronbach alpha scores of the instrument, of five sections and 13 constructs, were moderately high. 41 engineering colleges affiliated to the Anna University, Chennai, located in nine Western Tamil Nadu districts, formed the study population. Of the 1476 women engineering faculty, 103 women responded. The study used the non-probabilistic “snowball” sampling methodology. Results: Women engineering faculty perceived themselves to have specific (IL) skills in information seeking, including the skills related to internet use. Their self perception regarding information retrieval skills (IRS) using printed sources, was positive. Their self-perception regarding IRS using internet sources was low. They found minimal benefits of changing information into action for research and classroom teaching. The reasons stated were lack of facilities and lack of orientation in pedagogy. Conclusions: Their selfconfidence needs to be supplemented with skill building and incentivising the applying of IL/IRS skills to the classroom.


Keywords : Women in Stem; Tamil Nadu; Information Literacy; Information Retrieval; Women Engineering Faculty.
Corresponding Author : MA Deepamala