Students’ Prior Knowledge and Skills in Computer and Internet Use: An Exploration of Incoming First Year Undergraduate Health Sciences Students at Gulu University, Uganda
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Date
2020-06
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of Health Information and Librarianship
Abstract
Internet has provided infrastructure that enables access to a variety of information resources for use
by medical students at Gulu University in Northern Uganda. However, little attention has been put to
explore prior internet knowledge of undergraduate medical students in Uganda. Cross-sectional
research design was used. Fifty-six first year undergraduate health sciences students participated in
the study. Self-administered structured questionnaire was used for data collection and analysis was
done using SPSS version 16. Results shows that a majority of the participants had prior knowledge
of computer 48 (86.0%) and internet 44 (79.0%). 38 (68.0%) participants had access to internet and
34 (61.0%) owned computer before joining the University. Majority owned mobile phones 41
(73.0%) and used it for internet access 43 (84.0%). Use of internet was high in social media 46
(86.8) and searching general information 44 (84.6%). Participants expected easy access to teaching
materials 52 (94.5%) and communication 49 (90.7%) via internet. These findings suggest need for
healthcare librarians to train incoming medical students on use of ICTs; including social media
platforms and mobile phones to improve their ICT literacy skills to enable them access the best academic
information resources to enhance medical education.
Description
Keywords
Internet skills,, Gulu University,, first year health sciences students, Uganda.