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Information literacy and academic performance of students in two halls of residence of the University of Cape Town (South Africa)

Information literacy may be regarded as the ability to recogruse and identify an information need when it arises, and act upon this need to find the relevant information. It involves critical evaluation of information and application of cognitive thinking skills to various types of information sourc...

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Main Author: Makotoko, Likonelo Constance
Other Authors: De Jager, Karin
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Library and Information Studies Centre (LISC) 2024
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access_status_str Open Access
author Makotoko, Likonelo Constance
author2 De Jager, Karin
author_browse De Jager, Karin
Makotoko, Likonelo Constance
author_facet De Jager, Karin
Makotoko, Likonelo Constance
author_sort Makotoko, Likonelo Constance
collection Thesis
description Information literacy may be regarded as the ability to recogruse and identify an information need when it arises, and act upon this need to find the relevant information. It involves critical evaluation of information and application of cognitive thinking skills to various types of information sources. An information literate person uses and accesses variety of information sources in different formats so that s/hc may use information effectively to try and solve problems, make proper decisions and prepare for life long learning. Information literacy is regarded as very impor1":mt to people living in the Information Society, and to students studying at the university, on the job and in life as a whole. Therefore, there is a need to establish the information literacy skills of students at tertiary institutions to last them a lifetime. This dissertation investigates the different levels of information literacy skills of some undergraduate students at the University of Cape Town with a view to establish pattern~ of information use and to find if this may have any relationship with their academic performance. In orde: ·to access information for the solution of the task that the researcher pre posed to achie . a questionnaire was prepared and administered to the students of Tugwell and Kopano halls of residence of the University of Cape Town, South Africa. That was to establish the different levels of students' information literacy with the purpose of finding whether there was any positive correlation between the information literacy skills of undergraduate students and performance in their studies. The researcher compared the students' actual examinations results with the way they responded to sectiom of the questionnaire. The researcher made use of a total number of 184 students as the research sample on whom the research questionnaire were administered. The instrument used for this study consisted of 60 items broken into sections 1 - 9. The data used comprised of two sets. The first set, wrich was collected with the aid of the research instrumert, was coliected on the 20th - 22nd September, 1998. The second set of data was collected from the 15th December, 1998 - 20th January, 1999. It was analysed using tables which show totals and percentages of the totals. The study revealed that some relationships might exist between the information literacy skills and information use Xlll of the students and their academic performance and it was also established that some students have problems while studying at UCT. The study showed that positive correlation might exist between good academic writing and academic performance. Students who had indicated that they were able to express themselves and prepare reference lists performed better in the examinations. Students who reported to work more by supplementing their textbooks and course packs with extra material performed better in their examination, and therefore, there may be said to exist some positive correlation between students' u.cademic performance and their information literacy.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:49:35.729Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2024
publishDateRange 2024
publishDateSort 2024
publisher Library and Information Studies Centre (LISC)
publisherStr Library and Information Studies Centre (LISC)
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/40273 Information literacy and academic performance of students in two halls of residence of the University of Cape Town (South Africa) Makotoko, Likonelo Constance De Jager, Karin Library and Information Studies Centre Information literacy may be regarded as the ability to recogruse and identify an information need when it arises, and act upon this need to find the relevant information. It involves critical evaluation of information and application of cognitive thinking skills to various types of information sources. An information literate person uses and accesses variety of information sources in different formats so that s/hc may use information effectively to try and solve problems, make proper decisions and prepare for life long learning. Information literacy is regarded as very impor1":mt to people living in the Information Society, and to students studying at the university, on the job and in life as a whole. Therefore, there is a need to establish the information literacy skills of students at tertiary institutions to last them a lifetime. This dissertation investigates the different levels of information literacy skills of some undergraduate students at the University of Cape Town with a view to establish pattern~ of information use and to find if this may have any relationship with their academic performance. In orde: ·to access information for the solution of the task that the researcher pre posed to achie . a questionnaire was prepared and administered to the students of Tugwell and Kopano halls of residence of the University of Cape Town, South Africa. That was to establish the different levels of students' information literacy with the purpose of finding whether there was any positive correlation between the information literacy skills of undergraduate students and performance in their studies. The researcher compared the students' actual examinations results with the way they responded to sectiom of the questionnaire. The researcher made use of a total number of 184 students as the research sample on whom the research questionnaire were administered. The instrument used for this study consisted of 60 items broken into sections 1 - 9. The data used comprised of two sets. The first set, wrich was collected with the aid of the research instrumert, was coliected on the 20th - 22nd September, 1998. The second set of data was collected from the 15th December, 1998 - 20th January, 1999. It was analysed using tables which show totals and percentages of the totals. The study revealed that some relationships might exist between the information literacy skills and information use Xlll of the students and their academic performance and it was also established that some students have problems while studying at UCT. The study showed that positive correlation might exist between good academic writing and academic performance. Students who had indicated that they were able to express themselves and prepare reference lists performed better in the examinations. Students who reported to work more by supplementing their textbooks and course packs with extra material performed better in their examination, and therefore, there may be said to exist some positive correlation between students' u.cademic performance and their information literacy. 2024-07-04T13:39:50Z 2024-07-04T13:39:50Z 1999 2024-07-04T13:20:49Z Thesis / Dissertation Masters MBibl http://hdl.handle.net/11427/40273 eng application/pdf Library and Information Studies Centre (LISC) Faculty of Humanities
spellingShingle Library and Information Studies Centre
Makotoko, Likonelo Constance
Information literacy and academic performance of students in two halls of residence of the University of Cape Town (South Africa)
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Information literacy and academic performance of students in two halls of residence of the University of Cape Town (South Africa)
title_full Information literacy and academic performance of students in two halls of residence of the University of Cape Town (South Africa)
title_fullStr Information literacy and academic performance of students in two halls of residence of the University of Cape Town (South Africa)
title_full_unstemmed Information literacy and academic performance of students in two halls of residence of the University of Cape Town (South Africa)
title_short Information literacy and academic performance of students in two halls of residence of the University of Cape Town (South Africa)
title_sort information literacy and academic performance of students in two halls of residence of the university of cape town south africa
topic Library and Information Studies Centre
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/40273
work_keys_str_mv AT makotokolikoneloconstance informationliteracyandacademicperformanceofstudentsintwohallsofresidenceoftheuniversityofcapetownsouthafrica