Vivências e comportamento em informação dos discentes - pessoa com deficiência - da UniversidadeFederal da Paraíba

Abstract

The research in this report aims to analyze the information behavior of students - People with disabilities - of UFPB's undergraduate courses, and the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on this behavior. Methodologically, the research is characterized as bibliographic, descriptive, and exploratory, with a quantitative and qualitative approach. As a data collection instrument, a questionnaire prepared using Google Forms was applied, and made available to the research subjects via a multiplatform instant messaging and voice call application, WhatsApp. It adopts Content Analysis to systematize the thematic categories regarding the profile, need, search, and use of information and, finally, implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on information behavior. The results show that the students - People with Disabilities - are between 24 and 30 years old, with visual impairment, for the most part, and present in the most diverse courses offered by the Federal University of Paraíba, such as Library Science, History, Medicine, Computer Engineering, among others. Part of the investigated group participates in research and extension projects within the university. The behavior of searching and using information involves access to the Internet, massive use of social networks and communication, and information search applications, with a greater incidence in digital libraries. The need for information occurs to meet academic requirements, but there are also needs for medical and health information. In this process of searching for information, students face barriers, with financial, technological, and linguistic barriers, as well as institutional ones, being most frequently highlighted. Regarding the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, it highlights these based on the requirement for online subjects during the period of social isolation, the student-teacher relationship, and the university's strategies, as well as the courses to guarantee the effective information behavior of these students within the scope of the course. It concludes that the information behavior of students – people with disabilities – is anchored in traditional information channels such as books, scientific articles, television news, and others, but, above all, in contemporary channels, marked by the possibilities of digital information and communication technologies, such as social networks on the Internet and podcasts.