الملخص الإنجليزي
The study aimed at identifying the search behavior of graduate students in College of Education at Sultan Qabous University while using ERIC database, in regard to knowledge resources, motivations and frequency of use, searching features and the effect of strategies (modification/change) on retrieved documents efficiency.
It also aimed to investigate the impact of students training on the rates of recall and precision of the retrieved documents from ERIC database. Finally, it examined some of the difficulties students face when using ERIC database, such as language difficulties, choosing search terms, and search strategy
In order to achieve the aims of study, the researcher employed descriptive and experimental methods. In the descriptive method, a questionnaire consisted of 28 questions over 7 categories (areas), was distributed to a sample of 110 students.
In the experimental method, two groups were selected. The experimental group consisted of 15 respondents, and the control group consisted of 13 respondents.
The data was analyzed by using SPSS program, using descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, means, and standard deviation), and referential statistics ( T-test and Person correlation).
The main findings of the study were:
1. Teaching staff and SQU University librarians were the main resource of student's knowledge about the using ERIC database.
2. About eighty seven percent (87,3%) of graduate students of college of education at SQU used ERIC database for preparing thesis.
3. The most important search features used were the date of publication, Boolean logic, type of document and ERIC thesaurus.
4. The main methods to evaluate the relevance of the received documents was the document
abstract (80%). followed by the document title(66.4%).
5. The study showed that there were statistical significant differences at the level of (0.05) between the experimental group and the control group in favor of the experimental
group due to the training session.
6. There was no significant relationship between language difficulties and the rate of recall and precision 7. There was a statistical significant relationship between relevant terms choosing and the rate of recall and precision.
Based on the findings, the study recommended:
1- Offering graduate students course in using" electronic resources".
2- Providing graduate students of the college of education at Sultan Qabous intensive course in
using ERIC database.
3- It is also recommended that graduate students of college of education should have the skills
of using ERIC database before preparing their thesis proposals.
4- Teaching SQU students the skills of using information resources in general and using databases during their bachelor study specific.
