An Investigation of Effective Factors on Personal Information Management of Postgraduate Student at Alzahra University

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to study the effective factors on personal information management and know the strength and weakness in personal information management of postgraduate students at Alzahra University. Methodology: The methodology of the research, in the part of the literature review and theoretical literature, is library study and in the part of the analysis, is survey study (descriptive and analytic). The data were gathered through a researcher made questionnaire that contained 4 parts and 73 questions. The research population includes all of the postgraduate students (at M.A/M.Sc and Ph.D degrees) at Alzahra University whom are studying at this university during the educational year of 2011-2012. Based on the random sampling, 309 postgraduate students at M.A/M.Sc degree and 70 postgraduate students at Ph.D degree participated at this research. Finding: It should be noted that personal information management of the postgraduate students has been studied under the factors of “attitude, knowledge and skill.” The research results represent that among the effective factors on personal information management, the attitude average is 3.95, knowledge’s average is 3.29, and the skills set have the average of 3.17. Furthermore, the average of the three mentioned factors’ averages is about 3.47. Conclusion: The amount (3.47) indicates that the situation of personal information management of postgraduate students at Alzahra University is at the up to the average level. Therefore, one of the research hypotheses indicating: “the personal information management of Alzahra University postgraduate students is at a favorable situation”; is confirmed. On the other hand, the situation of personal information management by Ph.D students is the same as M.A/M.Sc students and this amount is around 3.47. Thus it can be said that there is no significant relation between personal information management by Ph.D students and M.A/M.Sc students. So, the other research hypotheses, indicating: “there is significant relation between personal information management by Ph.D students and M.A/M.Sc students at Alzahra University” is rejected.