Educator Readiness Evaluation in the Implementation of Curriculum 2013 in Disadvantaged, Frontier, and Outermost Areas

This study aims to describe the readiness of educators in implementing the 2013 curriculum in the 3T area in North Gorontalo District. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative method. The subjects in this study were school principals and educators in the 3T area school. The research result shows four things; first; Academic qualifications of educators in schools in the 3Tl area have not been fully fulfilled according to Law No. 20 of 2003 concerning the National Education System Article 42 paragraph (1). Second; The Academic Competence of Educators in the 3T area is not yet fully educated with S1 academic qualifications in accordance with Article 8 of Law Number 14 of 2005. The three certificates of educators have not been fully fulfilled in accordance with the mandate of Law Number 14 of 2005 concerning Educators and Lecturers. The fourth role of educators in realizing the goals of national education principals continues to encourage educators to continue to carry out learning innovations, especially in the implementation of the 2013 curriculum as an effort to improve professionalism as a form of role in realizing the goals of national education.

Information Seeking Anxiety Among Postgraduate Students: A Study of University of the Punjab, Lahore

This mixed method study aimed to investigate information seeking anxiety among postgraduate students using a sequential explanatory research strategy and was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, the data were collected using a questionnaire containing Information Seeking Anxiety Scale (ISAS) and demographic variables from postgraduate students. The second phase involved qualitative data collection using an interview guide from purposively selected students in order to better understand the proposed research problem. The targeted population consisted of postgraduate students from University of the Punjab, Lahore, for both phases of the study. In the quantitative phase, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) yielded six dimensions to the ISAS, namely, (1) Resource Anxiety, (2) ICT Anxiety, (3) Library Anxiety, (4) Search Anxiety, (5) Mechanical Anxiety, and (6) Thematic Anxiety. These six dimensions, while similar to those of Erfanmanesh, Abrizah, and Karim’s (2012) study, differed from their initial results with regard to the statements loaded on each factor. The results indicated that the ‘Thematic Anxiety’ was the most prevalent dimension among these respondents, followed by ‘Resource Anxiety’, ‘Mechanical Anxiety’, ‘ICT Anxiety’, and ‘Search Anxiety’; whereas ‘Library Anxiety’ was the least prevalent dimension. The largest segment of the sample experienced more than low anxiety in information seeking with regard to overall ISAS and all its sub-dimensions. Moreover, the participants’ age, gender, faculty, program of study, study stage, computer iii proficiency, and publishing experience appeared to be correlatives to the information seeking anxiety. While in the qualitative phase, the participants were asked to describe such critical situations that made them anxious in the information seeking process. The recurrent themes, identified by analyzing the content of students’ narratives, confirmed some of the dimensions observed in the quantitative phase. The emergent themes include: (a) Procedural Anxiety, (b) Information Overload, (c) Resource Anxiety, (d) Deficient Library Services, (e) Perceived Information Competence, (f) ICT Anxiety, (g) Language Anxiety, and (h) Thematic Anxiety. These participants also exhibited certain avoidance behaviours such as search avoidance, task avoidance, and even research avoidance, along with an inferiority complex. The results provided useful insights into the factors that caused anxiety among postgraduate students while seeking needed information. These findings would assist in developing useful directions for information literacy programs and help academic librarians in designing information literacy curricula not only for the students of the University of the Punjab but also for other similar institutions of Pakistan as well as of South Asia. Furthermore, the findings would encourage other researchers to conduct more detailed enquiries at other universities in Pakistan as well as in other developing countries. This study would make a worthwhile contribution to the literature on academic related anxiety in general, and information seeking anxiety in particular.