IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i7p3884-d527851.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Everyday Life Information Seeking Patterns of Resident Female University Students in Pakistan

Author

Listed:
  • Sadaf Rafiq

    (Central Library, Government College University, Lahore 54000, Pakistan)

  • Abid Iqbal

    (Central Library, Prince Sultan University, Riyadh 11586, Saudi Arabia)

  • Shafiq Ur Rehman

    (Deanship of Library Affairs, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam 31441, Saudi Arabia)

  • Muhammad Waqas

    (Department of E-Commerce, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China)

  • Muhammad Asif Naveed

    (Department of Information Management, University of Sargodha, Sargodha 40100, Pakistan)

  • Shakeel Ahmad Khan

    (Department of Library and Information Science, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur 63100, Pakistan)

Abstract

Purpose: Everyday life information seeking (ELIS) is essential for the mastery of life and plays a central role in the daily problem-solving activities of all human beings. This study aimed to investigate the everyday life information seeking of female university students residing at hostels in Lahore, Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach: A quantitative research approach using a survey method was adopted to identify the dimensions of ELIS and to fill the paucity of research on the topic. Two-hundred and forty-eight female students living in various university and private hostels in Lahore, Pakistan, were surveyed, and the collected data was analyzed using Statistics Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21. Findings: Results of the study revealed that hostel living expanded the social circle of students, as it offered exposure to diverse multicultural social groups. Female students living in hostels required information related to their academic needs, safety concerns, social life, and self-help issues. They relied mainly on mobiles phones, the internet, social media, and inter-personal relationships for everyday information. Cultural differences, natural hesitation, language barriers, time concerns, and difficulty in identifying reliable information were the primary obstacles in meeting everyday life information needs. Originality/value: The findings of this study can be used as a premise for developing interventions and information services for female students that allow them to live comfortably in a safe environment in hostels and achieve their educational goals. The study results may also provide useful insights for university administrations to establish libraries in hostels to better cater to their female residents’ information needs.

Suggested Citation

  • Sadaf Rafiq & Abid Iqbal & Shafiq Ur Rehman & Muhammad Waqas & Muhammad Asif Naveed & Shakeel Ahmad Khan, 2021. "Everyday Life Information Seeking Patterns of Resident Female University Students in Pakistan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-14, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:7:p:3884-:d:527851
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/7/3884/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/7/3884/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hasan, Arif & Raza, Mansoor, 2013. "Migration and Small Towns in Pakistan," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199060658.
    2. Reijo Savolainen, 2007. "Information source horizons and source preferences of environmental activists: A social phenomenological approach," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 58(12), pages 1709-1719, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Emmanuel Dornyoh & Abdul-Muhaeminu Tamakloe Ocloo & Tamakloe Ocloo, 2024. "The Environmental Sustainability Practices of Students at the Cape Coast Technical University Hostels," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 8(3s), pages 3435-3453, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:7:p:3884-:d:527851. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.