Lib Developing and Validating the Information Poverty Scale

Information poverty indicates a situation in which groups and individuals do not have adequate and equal access to quantitative and qualitative information or the ability to use it. The purpose of this article is to develop and validate the information poverty assessment scale in Ahvaz.

The present research is an applied study and has been done by "exploratory mixed" method. First, in the qualitative section, the components of information poverty were collected by reviewing the texts and using the opinions and views of experts by Delphi method. Factor analysis was used in the quantitative section to validate the scale. The present study population was all people in 15 years old and above in Ahvaz.

The results of the factor analysis confirmed 31 items, which were categorized using exploratory factor analysis in 5 factors: media information literacy, Internet access, book access, cultural behavior, and information access skills.

An examination of the various definitions of the various dimensions of information poverty has shown that this phenomenon categorized into four basic dimensions, each of which can have its own subsets. Thus, it seems poor access (to books and internet), digital skills, behavioral factors and media and information literacy can form a situation that leads to information poverty. In the present study, the existence of the same dimensions in explaining information poverty was confirmed and the components of access (to books and Internet), access skills, use (including information-media literacy) and behavioral factors were confirmed. The study of this phenomenon confirmed 31 items that used to measure this phenomenon. Thus, the scale created showed that information poverty related to information-related infrastructure, increasing the number of libraries and their resources, strengthening Internet access, and teaching information literacy.