Information literacy in the age of artificial intelligence: A study of research scholars at Banaras Hindu University

The research evaluates the concept of artificial intelligence (AI) literacy including awareness, usage patterns, self-perceived proficiency and challenges among the research scholars at Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi, India. The research adopted a convenience sampling method because of the availability of the respondents in various faculties of Banaras Hindu University the total number of questionnaires that were distributed was 250 of which 190 complete responses were received, thus the response rate was 76%. Statistical analysis involved descriptive and inferential statistical tests using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 26 (SPSS v26) and the MS Excel statistical tests. Results indicate that 75.8 percent of scholars are aware of AI with the majority being aware of AI through formal courses (38.9%), workshops (24.2%) and online resources (24.2%). The study found that 77.4% of respondents reported using AI tools with Turnitin (75.5%), ChatGPT (65.4%) and Grammarly (46.8%) being the most commonly used tools. The most popular uses are plagiarism detection (68.1%), idea generation (55.9%) and data analysis (54.3%). Self-assessed AI skills are mostly of average to good quality, which were acquired through self-education (33.7%) and formal courses (27.9%). Although 64.7% views AI as beneficial in terms of research, there are still significant barriers: a lack of training (75.3%), financial limitations (65.8%), and institutional support (51.6%). Inferential analysis shows that there is a moderate positive correlation between the frequency of AI use and self-rated skills (Spearman, rs = 0.439, p