Personal knowledge and information management behaviour in the light of the comparative studies among Polish and German students.

Introduction. This article addresses the following research questions: How do Polish and German surveyed students perceive the self-assessment of management of personal knowledge and information? What are the differences between both groups of respondents regarding demographic variables (sex and status: Bachelor and Master)? Method. A structured questionnaire was used consisting of thirty statements, and the respondents indicated their agreement/disagreement with each of them via the 5-point Likert scale. Analysis. T-test and analysis of variance were used along with the qualitative interpretation of numerical results. The average self-assessments (in the 1-5 scale) of knowledge and information gathering, organizing, selecting, sharing and creating in both groups of respondents are presented in tables. Results. The comprehensive average from all thirty statements in the questionnaire among German students was 3.41 and Polish students 3.68, which is statistically significantly higher. The majority of differences between the two were observed in two sections: knowledge and information organizing and selecting. The assessment of the usefulness of skills and knowledge gained during their studies was relatively high in both groups of respondents (3.91, 3.79), suggesting that the curriculum satisfied the German and Polish respondents' needs. Conclusions. Almost the same number of similarities and differences between both groups was observed. Both majors curriculum satisfied the respondents' needs, but the Polish information studies programme seems to be more effective in development of knowledge and information skills and competences than the culture and technology, and the environmental studies programmes in the German institution. Nevertheless, more comparative studies and deep analysis of study programmes would be necessary to obtain more reliable conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]