INFORMATIONAL POWER AND ITS EFFECTS ON A STUDENT’S PERSONALITY AND PERFORMANCE: ACQUIRED THROUGH AUTODIDACTISM AND TECHNOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS

Abstract

This paper investigates the acquiring of informational power through autodidactism by using technological applications and their effects on students’ personality and performance. Informational power denotes the amount of access an individual has to the resources, possession of information in the form of knowledge, and how information is communicated and expressed effectively to others. Autodidacticism is the process of self-education or self-learning that takes place without the supervision of mentors like professors and teachers or institutions like a school, college, and university. Personality is a set of traits and is studied by considering various aspects like emotions, behaviour, and genetics of a person. The bases of power model by French and Raven was used as a theoretical framework for the study. Using purposive sampling technique, data was collected from sixteen students of BS Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Maths, and English from a public sector university constitute the population of the study. The data were collected through one-on-one interview from the respondents. The data was analyzed qualitatively which involved steps of coding, categorizing, and theme creating from the transcribed interviews. The findings of the study were divided into two parts: in the first part, access to the sources of informational power was discussed and in the second part effects of informational power on a student’s personality and performance were discussed. The findings of the study reveal that students can acquire informational power through autodidactism by using various technological applications which were divided into five main categories based on similarity in sub-categories. Moreover, it was also concluded that informational power acquired through autodidactism by using technological applications affects a student’s personality and performance both positively and negatively.