Recent Advances in Education and Educational Technology

Understanding Choice of Information Source (CIS) Among Blind and

Visually Impaired (BVI) Vocational Students: Part I
TENGKU RAFIDATUL AKMA TENGKU RAZALI
ABD LATIF ABDUL RAHMAN
ASMADI MOHAMMED GHAZALI
Faculty of Information Management
Universiti Teknologi MARA (Kedah)
08400 Merbok, Kedah
MALAYSIA
MOHD HAFEZ KAMARUDIN
Faculty of Management and Economics
Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris
35900 Tanjung Malim, Perak
MALAYSIA
datul_89@yahoo.com; ablatif@kedah.uitm.edu.my; asmadi615@kedah.uitm.edu.my;
hafez.pclb@smjk.edu.my
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to identify the choice of information source among Blind and Visually
Impaired Vocational Students (BVIVS) to fill the gap in the current literature. This study was conducted by
using the questionnaire and data were collected through a phone call. 268 respondents were selected randomly
from the list name. The finding of this study revealed that main information source among the BVIVS was
human and followed by the printed source and electronic source. Hence further research need to conducted in
order to understand more on this community because with the new knowledge gained, the information
providers can focus their effort to understanding the BVIVSs choice of information sources and provide better
information source based on their preferences of the information source. It is anticipated that this paper will
contribute towards sustainability development for a better living of the blind and visually impaired in Malaysia
especially BVI vocational students.
Key-Words: Information Source, Choice of Information Source, Blind and Visually Impaired (BVI)
the BVI community also had been increasing
especially with the establishment of several blinds
primary and secondary special schools in Malaysia
under Ministry of Education (MOE) through Special
Education Program (SEP). There are also
educational institutions that giving training towards
this community after finishing their formal
education like Malaysia Association for the Blind
(MAB) and St. Nicholas Home (SNH). This two
BVIs educational institution provided a vocational
skill like massage, reflexology, computers literacy
and programming, telephony and several other
more.

1 Introduction
Nowadays, the awareness towards the BVI
community had been increase due to the increasing
number of the BVI community in the world. 10%
of the world population live with disability with 1/3
is those from BVI disability [1] and 90% of the BVI
community lived in developing countries [2].
However this estimation had been increase to 15%
[3]. Currently there are 30, 374, 341 Malaysias
population [4] and based on the 15% estimation,
there are around 4.6 million people in Malaysia
having a disability while 1/3 or 1.5 million are
having the visual disability either blind or visually
impairement.

2 Problem Statement
Lately, the information environment had been
changed parallel with the technological evolution
especially in term of the information source. As

The literature published in the popular journals also

more focus on visual disability compared to other
disability [5]. In Malaysia, the awareness towards

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that would include mass media channels such as

radio, television, newspapers etc [9]. For instance,
researcher failed to distinguish between information
sources and channels and they tend to use the term
information source whether they are referring to the
provider of the information or the communication
method [10]; [11]. Accodingly, this study do not
differentiated between the information source and
information channel as long as it contains and bring
the information.

known, information source play an important role in

the information seeking process. Information source
of the BVI in Malaysia are important to be
investigate as the information source is a medium to
get their information needs in order to fulfilled their
desire to complete their activities. However for most
of the 20th century, the BVI had little access to
newspapers and other forms of printed media
because it is unclear whether libraries and schools
are providing material in accessible formats or
offering sufficient digital literacy training to people
with disabilities [6]. The choice of the information
source may influence the decision making process.
The availability of several information sources may
needs some evaluation before choose and used it.
However BVI community especially students was
the most unlucky community in term of information
source because they do not have an options. They
cant read material with their sight. Previously they
used the Braille books. Then the audio or talking
books were created for them. Nowadays the
availability of several adaptive technologies helps
them to use the computers and mobile devices.
Moreover human as the information source for the
BVI vocational students cant be deny because they
interact with the teachers, families and people
surrounding them much more than several other
information source
.
In reality, only 5% of books in the world are
available in accessible formats for this print disable
community [7] due to the production for each of the
IS for this community involve a high cost, time and
energy. Nowadays, because of the availability of the
several information sources like human, printed and
electronic, BVI community can choose the most
suitable information source. The question here is
which information source will be chosen and used
by the BVI students. Is that they will choose a
traditional IS like a Braille book or several others
source? The objective of this study was to identify
the choice of information source among BVI
vocational students.

Several researchers categorized the information

source in the different way. [12] [13] categorizing
information sources into the following four types: 1)
self, 2) other people, 3) organizations and 4)
documents. [14] enumerated types of information
sources into six categories 1) formal source 2)
informal source 3) internal source 4) external source
5) oral/written source and 6) personal source.
There are several information source available for
the BVI community like radio, telephone, television,
digital media, website and mobile phone [6]. In
Malaysia, based on the observation at the two BVI
vocational centers, other than human there are
Braille books, large print, talking books, internet
and other adaptive technology had been used as the
information source. Hence this study categorized the
information source into three categories which are
human, printed and electronic source. Human refers
to other people either personal people or
organizations through the oral source including
family, friends, teachers, librarians and others while
printed source refers to the any printed documents
either Braille book, large print and etc that
physically printed. Electronic source refers to the
source that used the electronic devices either talking
book, radio, television or other adaptive technology
like computers and mobile devices.

4. Methodology
This study was conducted in a quantitative method
to identify the choice of information source among
blind and visually impaired vocational student. The
questionnaire was designed in the English and
Bahasa Melayu through the back-to-back translation
and piloted at the SNH. The targeted population of
this study is at the BVIs vocational center, MAB
that aware the existing of the library as a main place
of the information source. 268 samples had been
selected randomly from the 889 register users list
name and data were collected for 40 days through
the telephone questionnaire for 15-20 minutes for

3 Literature Review
Information source is any physical carrier that
contains information [8]. As there are number of
vary information needs, there are also a number of
vary information source. However previous
researcher used the term information source that
refers to the information channel. Information
channel define as the means by which messages
(information) get from one individual (information
provider) to another (information receiver/ seekers)

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each of the respondents while 18 respondents do not

pick up the phone.

5. Analysis and Result

The data were analyses by using the SPSS 21 for the
descriptive statistic in order to answer the research
objectives. These statistics give overview of the
respondents demographic details who participated
in this phone call survey. Based on the key in data,
the response rate was 93.3% which are 250
respondents from the total 268 sample answer the
phone called. From 250 respondents, 42.4% were
male and 57.6% were female. 42.0% of the
respondents were Malay, 32.4% were Chinese and
25.6% were Indian. The analysis also shows that
46% of the respondents were above 30 years old.
32.4% of the respondents had a age range between
26 to 30 years old while 10.8% had a age range
between 21 to 25 years old and below 20 years old
respectively. The majority of the respondents
(62.4%) were married, 22.0% single and 15.6%
divorced. Almost half of the respondents (50.4%)
were having the BVI level three, while 26.8% were
BVI level two and 22.8% were totally blind or BVI
level one. Finally 46% of the BVI respondents have
a STPM, Diploma or Certificate. 37.2% complete
the secondary school by having the SPM while only
6.8% having the PMR. The balance of the 10% of
the respondents completes the primary school by
having the UPSR. The summary of the total 250
respondents demographic can be refers in the table
1 below.

Fig. 1 Summary choice of information source

among BVI vocational students
The data analysis shows that 66.4% BVIs
vocational students choose the human as their first
choice while 22% choose the printed source as their
first choice and only 11.6% choose the electronic
source as the first choice. For the second choice,
49.2% respondents choose the printed source
followed by the electronic source (28%) and human
source (22.8%). The data clearly shows that 60.4%
of the respondents choose the electronic source as
the third choice while 28.8% choose the printed
source and only 10.8% chose the human as the last
choice. The comparison between this three
information source can be refers in the diagram
below where it clearly shows that BVI vocational
students choose human as the first choice followed
by the printed source and electronic source.

Table 1: Respondents demographic details

6. Discussion and Recommendation

The discussion and recommendation of this study
were based on the following research question:
What are the information sources used by
Blind and Visually Impaired (BVI)
vocational students?
The findings shows that BVI user tends to choose
human as their first choice and follows by the
printed source and electronic source. The findings
were consistent with Malaysian Parliament Member
[15] blind and sight impaired citizens [16], older

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is because although there are over three million ebooks available from Amazon over the internet,
there are still over 12 million hard copy books on
Amazon [23]. The volunteer were needed in order to
convert the hard copy books into the electronic
version before converting it into the Braille or any
other format that print disable can read. Otherwise
volunteer also needed to read the books and record
it before converting to the audio or talking books.

people [17] and general community [12] where the

main source of information was from the mouth and
the other information source were used in a
complementary way. This is because BVI will seek
information from the trust placed as the Granovetter
Strength of Weak Ties Theory where people will
often seek advice from their strong ties (i.e. friends
and family) before acting on information.
The choice of information source of the BVI
community were differs with the social science
scholars [18]; [19]; [20] and honours students [21]
that prefers printed information source as their first
choice while BVI community choose the printed
source as their second choice. The people who do
not have a visual problems basically choose the
printed information source because it was easy to
find, containing a huge amount of relevant
information, more readily portable than electronic
resources, lack of adequate technology skills and
poor speed of the internet while those who showed a
preference for electronic resources prefer to print
articles in order the read and use them in future.
Unfortunately, the only printed source available for
the blind people is Braille while the visually
impaired person is large print. However Braille is
only commonly used amongst those who have been
blind since a young age [16]. As a large proportion
of people who are blind and vision impaired have
become so later in life, Braille is not the most
common form of communication. Furthermore
almost all the organization that servicing the BVI
community is a charity organization that has a
limited funding and only 5% of the books available
in the form of accessible format that print disable
can be read [7]. In addition the information sources
for the BVI community in Delhi libraries very much
limited and inadequacy in both Braille and Audio
[22]. This situation also occurs in the Malaysia
environment where the information source in form
of Braille was limited, inadequacy and may often be
out-of-date by the time it is made available and is
expensive to convert into more accessible formats.
Perhaps only BVI students and those who are
employed can get the printed materials in form of
Braille and audio for free.

BVI vocational students choice of information

source also differs with the acculturation
international students [24] and young adult [25] that
prefers electronic and media information source
before choose the printed information source.
Although the evolution of the internet and electronic
devices with the screen reader software aid had
made the information source available for BVI
community, it only became their last choice because
of the certain barriers. [16] had identified the cost as
the main barriers, [26] identified that technological
challenges as the key barriers while previously [27]
had identified age as the major barriers. In addition
those who occur this disabilities in the adults, they
do not receive an education in assistive technologies
during their childhood and remain significant
barriers to new media [6]. [22] find outs that lack of
sufficient number of computers a hurdle in the way
to read e-texts and use Internet but for those who
have the computer-based sources like DAISY
Books, e-texts and Internet, they lack of computer
knowledge that cause them do not really use
computers for reading. The observation from this
study from the two charity organization for the BVI
in Malaysia also shows that the technological
equipment for the BVI community were outdated
and only a few available.
Hence, to make sure BVIs community especially
vocational students do not left behind in term of
information source as international students and
young adults, it was recommend that Social Welfare
or Ministry of Education should prepare mobile
devices for their used once they register as OKU
because it has several advantages like [28]; [29];
[30] suggest several application and advantages of
the mobile devices including as the information
source among BVI community. This is because
having an internet and technology devices among
the BVI community was like having everything but
the financial barriers became a limitation [16].
Furthermore the policymakers need to address
accessibility issues and companies incorporate
accessible features into the designs of new products
to become more disability friendly as [6] found out

Based on the observation at the SNH and MAB, the

major challenges face by this two charity
educational institution is the process of converting
the printed source into Braille and electronic source
that takes times. Hence it was suggested that
university students should became a volunteer in the
charity organization especially in the BVIs charity
organization as one of the community services. This

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that the developers and manufacturers of the new

technology tended to neglect this community.

[8]

7. Conclusion

[9]

Choice of information source had been change

following the evolution of the technology. However
the findings shows that BVI vocational student in
Malaysia does not change their choice of
information source from the human and followed by
printed and electronic although other normal sighted
people had shift their choice of information source
towards the electronic source. Identify the choice of
information source among BVI vocational student is
vital for the library and other information provider
in order to meeting this community needs. It also
can help the information provider to prepare a best
service as possible and become a cost-effective
organization especially for the BVI community. The
factors that influence the choice of information
source among the BVI vocational students had been
discussed in the Understanding Choice of
Information Source (CIS) Among Blind and
Visually Impaired (BVI) Vocational Students: Part
II.

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

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