Internet Literacy Among Female University Students in Malaysia

Abstract

Development in any society involves the participation of informed citizens of that society regardless of gender; and due to advances in new technology everybody, including women, should be empowered with high quality education, which in turn involves internet literacy. This article looks at the level of internet access and the use of internet among female university students in Malaysia. Data was collected from 200 female students selected randomly from four public universities in Malaysia. The results suggest that all the female university students have access to the internet at home and or the university, and they have good motivation for daily internet use, both for academic and non-academic purposes. However, regarding informational skills as a sub-division of skill access, they need some help to learn where they should refer to for certain information, especially for academic purposes, and how they should find, select, process and evaluate such information. To meet these challenges, universities could either organise long term course work or run short term workshops to develop the students’ research skills and introduce the essential sources and tools for undertaking research in particular, and social interaction in general.