The research support needs of emerging researchers employed at the Education Faculty of a University of Technology.

Abstract

Globally academic institutions are under pressure to improve their research outputs, both in terms of quality and quantity. The library plays an important role in providing research support services to its community of researchers so that they can contribute to research. As a young research institution, CPUT has a large cohort of emerging researchers–among those, teacher educators in its education faculty. This study, based on research for a master’s degree (Oosthuizen, 2019), set out to determine their research support needs by using a mixed methods approach that included collecting mostly quantitative data from researchers and qualitative data from support staff. It found that this group of researchers needs the library’s support at all stages of the research life cycle but to varying degrees. The information gathering stage is where almost all researchers consider the library’s support necessary, while the majority of respondents did not consider support in the planning stage as necessary. Many respondents were neutral about some services, indicating their unfamiliarity with what the library does or might offer. The study recommends that the library improve awareness of the research support services it offers and that it works more collaboratively with other research support entities at the university for a more streamlined approach to research support. While this study investigated a small sample of researchers, the library can use its ë findings to tailor services to a particular group of users.