Exploring the association of information retrieval skills with university students’ academic performance and cognitive skill development

Purpose This study aims to explore how students’ information retrieval (IR) skills influence their academic success and personal growth. It also measured students’ self-assessed IR skills, their knowledge of complex search techniques and scholarly information resources and the association between these skills and their academic and cognitive skill development. Design/methodology/approach This study used a quantitative research approach, collecting data from 374 undergraduate and graduate students at a public university in Bangladesh via a printed questionnaire survey and using a convenience sampling technique. Non-parametric tests and Spearman’s rank correlation analysis examined differences between groups and relationships among variables. Findings Results revealed that students generally lacked confidence in retrieving information with Boolean operators, truncation and metadata filtering, despite showing some proficiency in basic IR tasks like keyword searching and source identification. The most frequently used scholarly information resources were Google Scholar, ResearchGate and Academia.edu, while more specialized resources like Scopus, IEEE Xplore and Web of Science were less frequently used. Finally, students’ IR skills varied significantly based on their field of study, gender, education level, CGPA, research experience, internet skills, IR training and use of AI technologies and their academic achievement and cognitive skill development were strongly linked to their perceived IR skills. Research limitations/implications This study was conducted at a single public university in Bangladesh. Therefore, the findings should be interpreted within the context of the participating institution and warrant validation through multi-institutional studies. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt in Bangladesh to identify the association of IR skills with students’ academic performance and cognitive skill development.