Assessment of Pre and Final Year Undergraduate Veterinary Students Information Literacy Competencies and Attitude towards e-Learning

The study was conducted to assess the information literacy competencies of pre and final year undergraduate v eterinary students and their attitude towards e-learning. The 120 pre-final and final year v eterinary students studying at Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Ludhiana were selected randomly and data was collected with the help of a structural q uestionnaire consisting of 25 items with respect to concept identification, search strategy, document types, search tools, use of results and e-learning. The study revealed that only 12.5% of the veterinary students belonged to high knowledge level category whereas majority of them 68.3% (P<0.01) possessed low knowledge towards information literacy competencies. A high percentage of v eterinary students lacked the necessary knowledge and skills to identify main concept and significance of words (52.5%), to opt appropriate search strategy (83.1%), to select req uired document types (42.1%), to utilize efficient search tools (73.8%) and to evaluate and use results (68.8%). Only 18.3% students had ability to use computer as experts. About 62.5% respondents used search engines as e-learning tool. About 87.9 and 89.7% male and female respondents possessed fav ourable attitude towards use of e-learning tools. Gender and OCPA had no significant association with knowledge lev el as well as e-learning attitude of veterinary students. The study revealed notable gaps among students towards information literacy competencies and e-learning, hence, teaching of credit bearing Information L iteracy courses is imperative to enhance undergraduate veterinary students ’knowledge and information seeking skills.