Information Literacy in the Workplace: A Case of Scientists from Pakistan

Abstract

Information literacy is considered an essential competency in the workplace because it gives a competitive advantage, improves decision-making and enhances efficiency as well as effectiveness of the workforce. This study intends to investigate information literacy among scientists working at the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR), Lahore. The data were collected from 121 scientists using a questionnaire, with both descriptive as well as inferential statistics applied for data analysis. The results indicated that a large majority of these scientists never received any formal IL training during their entire career. A large majority of these scientists, in general, perceived IL instructions as important and preferred short-term training programs if offered. In addition, these scientists were confident and competent in using searching tools, multiple printed and electronic information resources, comprehending published research and writing research papers. However, they were less comfortable in interpreting visual information, defining information needs, assessing relevance and quality, synthesizing and evaluating gathered information, using library e-resources, managing citations as well as developing and initiating search strategies. The age, gender, academic qualification, research experience and number of publications appeared as the predictor of IL self-efficacy. There was a critical need for making arrangements regarding IL instruction program for in-service scientists.

Predictors of information literacy self-efficacy among medical students: PLS-SEM analysis

“…Therefore, all four predictors were ignored in the current study. However, English language proficiency (Mahmood, 2013;Naveed and Mahmood, 2019) and research experience (Naveed and Rafique, 2018) proved to be significant predictors of IL self-efficacy in the local context. Similarly, globally and locally, there is room for further exploration of the relationship between cognition, emotion and IL learning.…”

“…The literature review further depicts that various studies explored the different aspects of IL such as evaluations of IL instruction program, barriers for IL instructions program, the impact of IL on personal information management and various factors that affect the IL skills such as educational level, social background, ICT proficiency, English language proficiency, age, computer expertise, education level and so on. (Durodolu, 2018;Kousar and Mahmood, 2013;Lanning and Mallek, 2017;Mahmood, 2013;Mahmood, 2016;Malanga, 2017;Naveed and Rafique, 2018;Rafique and Mahmood, 2015;Rafique and Khan, 2017;Ullah and Ameen, 2016). Recently, Akpovire et al (2019) investigated the association between IL skills and the utilization of information sources.…”

“…Aharony and Gazit (2019) also proved that experience was positively associated with IL skills. From the local context, Naveed and Rafique (2018) pointed out that research experience was an important factor in improving the scientists' IL skills. Therefore, the following hypothesis was presumed:…”

“…Globally, a good number of studies in the area of IL are available because this phenomenon has been extensively studied (Anyaoku et al, 2015;Durodolu, 2018;Lanning and Mallek, 2017;Malanga, 2017;Odede and ZAWEDDE, 2018;State et al, 2013). In Pakistan too, a handful of studies addressed the different aspects of IL (Batool and Mahmood, 2012;Batool and Webber, 2019;Mahmood, 2016;Naveed and Rafique, 2018;Rafique and Mahmood, 2015;Rafique, 2014;Rafique and Khan, 2017;Shahid, 2016). There are certain factors that affect the IL skills of students, and a good number of studies have been observed locally and internationally that assessed IL skills and revealed factors including educational level, social background, ICT proficiency, English language proficiency (Kousar and Mahmood, 2013;Mahmood, 2016;Naveed and Rafique, 2018).…”

Correlatives of business students’ perceived information literacy self-efficacy in the digital information environment

“…Some studies assessed IL in the context of the workplace (e.g. Anwar, 1981; Naveed, 2021; Naveed and Rafique, 2018). There were only a few studies addressing self-efficacy of students for IL (Soroya et al, 2020).…”