A Study on the Impact of Information Communication Technology (Ict) on Information Seeking Behavior of Teachers & Students

Pooja Sharma

A Study on the Impact of Information Communication Technology (Ict) on Information Seeking Behavior of Teachers & Students

Exploring the Impact of ICT on Education

by Pooja Sharma*,

- Published in Journal of Advances and Scholarly Researches in Allied Education, E-ISSN: 2230-7540

Volume 1, Issue No. 2, Apr 2011, Pages 0 - 0 (0)

Published by: Ignited Minds Journals

ABSTRACT

Knowledge is ever growing. Itgoes unfolding the mysteries of the unknown. As new invention and discoveriesare made, they add to the existing corpus of knowledge. Systematic development ofknowledge is a collective effort. Each individual contributes a small bit ashis share. As one cannot make hiscontribution in any field he wishes to choose any point of time, he has to makesustained effort over a long period. He has to systematicallyproceed from general awareness of all the branches of knowledge to a small areaof research towards the end of his educational process. Many factors areresponsible for men’s educational progress. Today, world is progressing throughvarious trends. In those trends ICT isone; ICT plays a great part in men’s progress. Before moving forward we must have the knowledge of ICT & its impacton our education. ICT is a “diverse set oftechnological tools and resources used to communication and to create,disseminate, store and manage information”. These technologies includecomputers, the internet, broadcasting technologies (radio and television) andtelephony.

KEYWORD

knowledge, information seeking behavior, teachers, students, information communication technology, ICT, educational progress

INTRODUCTION:

Information and communication technologies (ICT) exemplified by the internet and interactive multimedia are obviously of great significance for education. It needs to be effectively integrated into the formal classroom teaching and learning conditions. It is also to be focused in a teacher education program. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and the empowerment of teachers to utilize ICT have been acknowledged as two important aspects in teaching and learning. ICT brings education to student’s doorsteps, allowing them to study at their own pace and time. When used appropriately, different ICT are said to help expand access to education, strengthen the relevance of education to the increasingly digital workplace and raise educational quality by among others, helping to make teaching and learning into an engaging, active process connected to real life. The effective integration of ICT into the educational system is a complex, multifaceted process that involves not just technology but also curriculum and pedagogy, institutional readiness, teacher competencies and long- term financing, among others. Digitization of many ICT has made it possible to design, develop, deliver, manage and assess the learning and training process easily. It increases the efficiency of the system and makes it more powerful. Latest digital technologies are evolving and conveying rapidly, some of these are :

Multimedia PC, Laptop, Notebook, Digital Video/Still Camera, on-line learning/e-

learning (local area networking and other networking/mobile phone).

www (World Wide Web) : CD-ROM and DVD, email and Chat; Blended learning

(combination of classroom teaching, on-line learning and e-mail, chat, web based training); Digital Libraries. Computer Mediated Conferencing – Video/Audio Conferencing, Virtual Reality, Application of Software such as Word Processing, Spread Sheet. Powerpoint and Simulation and Speech Recognition etc. Information is a vital resource always required to take right decisions or for choice of right option from amongst various options. If the required information exists, it needs to be searched and located. If it does not exist, it needs to be generated in a systematic manner and then used. Since a large volume of information exists and at a particular point of time, a person may require a small amongst of tit, he will have to put his requirements imprecise terms. The information seeking process is of cyclic nature. Various steps in the process are inter- related, acting upon each other in the sequential order, as well as interacting with the information seeking behaviour in general simultaneously. The following process takes place in information seeking behaviour. 1. Identifying 2. Objective Defining Needs 3. Accessing Sources of Information 4. Information Acquisition 5. Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction The term ‘information – behaviour’ is used here to include an activities comprising information gathering information receiving and communicating. Information seeking precedes gathering and information gathering most of the times implies seeking. However, in a broader concept than information seeking behaviour. However, both the terms are quite used interchangeably in the literature and ‘information behaviour’ includes both Krickelas (1983), feels that information seeking behaviour is concerned with activity associated with satisfying immediate needs and information gathering behaviour is concerned with activities associated with deferred need. The fact that a situation demands information to fill cognitive gaps, to support values and beliefs, or to influence affective states, and that sources of information are available and accessible to the searcher is no guarantee that the information will be ‘processed’ (that is, incorporated into the users’ framework of knowledge, beliefs or values) or used (that is, lead to changes in behaviour, values or beliefs). One of the problems with this aspect of information behaviour is that information processing is as subjective as information need and, like information need, is not directly observable, since it takes place in the mind of the individual. Another difficulty is that the association between information processing and learning is so close to be almost identical and learning theory has been covered only incidentally in this review.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

Research can never be undertaken in isolation of the works done on the problems which are explicitly or implicitly related to the study proposed to be done by a researcher. A through review of the related literature must precede any well planned research study. Such survey implies locating, studying and evaluating reporting of relevant researchers, studying published articles, consulting encyclopedias, dictionaries and also the book so far come out on this subject. This process acquits the investigator with the new developments and the material to be used for study. Its purpose, which is more significant, is to help the researcher to find out what is known, what others have attempted to find out. One can avoid those fields which have already been taken up and results have been drawn. An investigator can also find an understanding of the research methodology and line of action. The educationists have emphasized to go through the related literature before taking up research project. George, Bright, Hurlbert, Linke, Clair and Stein (2006) explored graduate students information behavour related to their process of inquiry and scholarly activities for this purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted with one hundred graduate students representing all disciplines from Carnergic Mellon Unviersity. The combined use of quantitative and qualitative analysis aimed to reduce subjectivity. Lack of sophistication in findings and using resources and course requirements affect their information behaviour. Libraries can influence student’s information behaviour by re-evaluating their instructional programmes and provisions of resources and services. They can take a lead by working with academic staff of guide students. Gardinder, Mcmeney and Choudhary compared information behaviour of British Univesity Academics in disciplines of computer and information seicnece, business/management and English literature. They found that English academics made higher use of printed information resources and were least frequent users of electronic resources. CIs academics tended to make greatest use of electronic based information resources and business/management academics fell somewhere in between these two disciplines. CIs academics were generally the most anthusiastic about the benefit to electronic resources, whereas English academics disagree to some extent that electronic information was easier to use than printed resources, which might go some way to explain their lower use of electronic materials, and higher use of printed materials. Patitungkho and Deshpande studied the information seeking behaviour of Rajabhat Unviersity of Bangkok, the results showed that most of the respondents stated their method of seeking information by consulting knowledgeable person in the filed and they sought information for preparing lectures, keeping upto date knowledge and researchwork. They recommended that library staff should focus on assisting users and help them to improve their skills in information seeking activities and to fond the needed information by organizing programmes and advanced trainings at different levels for using OPAC, search engine e-mail, online and CD-ROM technologies, interest for users.

RESEARCH METHODOLGY

Through research, men have explored the unexplored for making the human life more comfortable, safe and purposeful. Thus the urge to reexamine, re-evaluating and re- understanding the world around may rightly be called research. The solution of the problems may lie in the past, present or future. If the solution of the problem could only be revealed from analyzing the past data, then we have to follow the historical method for conducting the research. Survey method can be used if the solution lies in the present, and if the solution is in the future, experimental method will be useful. Survey research is a social survey in which an investigator comes in direct contact with people from whom he collects the information. Thus research is “careful, critical and exhaustive investigation to discover new facts which tests a hypothesis, revise accepted conclusions, or contribute positive values to society in genera.” The ultimate aim of research is to gain knowledge of the truth or in other words, to establish the validity of a belief on the basis of scientifically verifiable knowledge. The purpose of study will be known the teachers and researchers search their required information, the sources they make use of an researchers search their required information, the sources they make use of and relative use of different sources. Thus its nature will be essentially empirical and it was designed to measure the desired chrematistics of a definite population. A great variety of methods and procedures have been developed to aid in the collection of data. These tools are of many kinds and employ methods of collecting and interpreting data. Validity and reliability are however, qualities that are essential to effectiveness of any data gathering device. The tool employed in collecting the data for the present study will be Questionnaire.

TOOLS AND TECHNIQUE OF DATA COLLECTION

A great variety of methods and procedures have been developed to aid in the collection of data. These tools are of many kinds and employ methods of collecting and interpreting data. Validity and reliability are however, qualities that are essential to effectiveness of any data gathering device. The tool employed in collecting the data for the present study will be Questionnaire.

1. QUESTIONNAIRE

It is a data gathering instrument through which respondents answer a specified set of questions. It is used when factual or opinion based information is required. For the drafting systematic and effective questionnaire, the following guide lines will be taken into consideration. A. The language of questions will be kept simple so that it is easily understand and any confusion is avoided. B. The size of the questionnaire will be tailored to presentable limits so that the users approached, do not feel monotony and overburdened and as such shirk from filling in the questionnaire. C. The individual questions are grouped in an objective manner with the help of direct language so that there will be no overlapping in their group and arrangement. D. The questions included are only those which have direct relevance with the topic. The researcher prepared one questionnaire for collecting data performing to the impact of ICT on the information seeking behavior of teachers and students.

5. DATA COLLECTION

Questionnaire administered personally to a group of individuals has a number of advantages. The person administrating the instrument has an opportunity to establish rapport, to explain the purpose of the study and to explain the meeting of items that may otherwise not be very clear. The availability of number respondents in one place makes economy of possible time and expenses and provides a high proportion of useable responses.

6. DATA ANALYSIS AND PRESENTATION

Data thus collected, will be recorded on tally sheets and finally presented in tabular form. Data analysis is restricted to percentage of frequency counts.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

To know the purpose of information needs of teachers and students of Universities.

To know the relative use of various sources of information.

 To identify the pattern a interaction for information with fellow professional.

To identify the sources used for knowing the required document.

To identify various types of documents used in the libraries; and

To know the difficulties faced to obtaining the required information.

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