An Analysis of the Effects of Internet on the Educational and Research Data Acquisition Behavior of University Students (A Case Study of Shiraz University)

The present study examined the effect of internet on the educational and research data acquisition behavior of Shiraz University students. More specifically, it aimed to answer questions concerning data acquisition behavior of two groups of internet users and non-users and factors affecting it, the way students access information, examining andcomparing the amount of internet and data banks usage taking into consideration their educational degree and gender, the purpose and usage problems, and comparing the users’ and non-users’ research activities. To this end, 500 undergraduate and graduate students were sampled from ten Shiraz University faculties using stratified sampling method. They replied to a thirty-item questionnaire. The results of the study showedthat the number of users exceeded the number of non-users and that the users’ gender and educational degrees had no effect on the amount of internet usage. Further, it was revealed that there was a significantly meaningful difference between the number of research activities in two groups of users and non-users. The reason to use internet was stated to be the ease and speed of data retrieval. The problems in using internet weredivided into two classes of individual and general pertaining to the information system.