Information Behavior of Electrical Engineering and Computing Doctoral Students and Their Perception of the Academic Library’s Role: A Case Study in Croatia
| Autor: | Kornelija Petr Balog, Jadranka Lisek, Boris Badurina |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2018 |
| Předmět: |
Courtesy
business.industry media_common.quotation_subject 05 social sciences Electrical engineering Sample (statistics) Library and Information Sciences 050905 science studies Domain (software engineering) Information behavior Work (electrical) Perception Structured interview ComputingMilieux_COMPUTERSANDEDUCATION academic library Croatia doctoral students electrical engineering and computing information behavior 0509 other social sciences 050904 information & library sciences business Psychology Publication media_common |
| Popis: | Th aim of the paper is to present findings of a study on information sources and information behavior of doctoral students at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing at the University of Zagreb, Croatia. The study also looked into student perceptions of the role of the academic library and their attitudes toward it as a legitimate partner in the research process, as doctoral students are required to publish the results of their doctoral research in high-ranking peer-reviewed journals during their course of study. However, they rarely use the library and its services; the study was undertaken with the intent to obtain insight into the students’ information behavior as well as needs and reasons for overlooking the library as a relevant partner in their research process. The online survey was conducted on a sample of 138 postgraduate students, with semi-structured interviews with five postgraduate students also conducted. The findings show a dominant student orientation towards online sources such as online databases and Google Scholar. Students tend to overlook the library as a relevant information source but have positive attitudes toward librarians (their knowledge, skills and courtesy). The library needs to become more active in promoting its services and, especially in the domain of postgraduate education, needs to be regarded as a necessary location for any serious research work, where librarians are regarded as cooperating partners in the research process. There were a few limitations of the study: respondents were unwilling to dedicate their time to this research and therefore the interviews were too short to examine the topics discussed in-depth, while the sample was extremely homogeneous, making the results only in part transferable to other contexts. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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