Exploring the postgraduate students perceptions, usefulness and effectiveness of information literacy skills at University of Malaya library

The aim of this study was to find out the extent to which the postgraduate students who attended the information skills session at University of Malaya’s library perceived the session to be useful as well as effective in their attempts to locate, access and use the information needed so as to avail themselves of the library resources. In order to evaluate the perceived usefulness of information literacy skills and effectiveness of information literacy skills, two scales were adopted from the existing literature on the information literacy skills. Self-report instruments comprising the two scales as well as demographic items were incorporated into the online questionnaire. The study explored the respondents’ perceptions, usefulness and effectiveness of the information literacy skills at University of Malaya’s library among those who attended the information skills session in 2014/2015 academic session. To conduct this study, a cross-sectional survey design was carried out to answer the relevant research questions. The data have been generated from the online questionnaire of the sample size of this study. The analysis and interpretations of findings were entirely based on the feedback received from the respondents. This analysis has been conducted using the latest version (22 versions) of SPSS for window software. It is hoped that the management and library instructors of the University of Malaya should conduct a regular assessment of the usefulness and effectiveness of information literacy skills (ILS) among those who attended the training program in order to know whether the training program is perceived to be useful as well as effective in completing their academic activities. This can help the library staff to improve their teaching services.   Key words: information, literacy, skills, perceived, usefulness, effectiveness, University of Malaya library.