Difficulties in the information-related research tasks encountered by the undergraduates: a case study of third year science undergraduates of University of Colombo

Abstract

A survey was conducted in 2013 in the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo on the information-seeking behavior of the third year undergraduates, and part of the findings are presented here. The specific objectives of this paper are 1) to illustrate the Difficulties in the Information-related Research Tasks (DIRT) encountered by the undergraduates 2) to examine the findings in the light of the previously published research, and 3) to make recommendations to improve the use of librarians in their information search. To study the (DIRT), twenty statements related to six stages of the research process; starting process, searching for information, evaluating, using, citing and completing the process* were used with seven Likert type response categories and MS Excel was used to analyze the data.