The Development and Validation of a Knowledge Activities Scale for the Information Professionals in University Libraries

Abstract

This research aims to develop a scale for measuring knowledge activities of information professionals which include the attributes for positive and negative, individual and group. The research processes include interviewing several experts, the exploratory analysis of the pre-test, and the confirmatory factor analysis of the formal questionnaire collecting from academic librarians. The result indicates that there are four factors for individual level, including knowledge absorption, knowledge share, knowledge hampering, and knowledge transfer; and three factors for group level, including knowledge enlarging, knowledge clustering, and knowledge initiating. The scale from both individual and group level demonstrated robust psychometric properties, with acceptable levels of reliability and validity. Library managers could adopt the scales to examine the extent to knowledge activities in order to design a future plan according to the status of the existing library for promoting knowledge management. Furthermore, the result of t-test and ANOVA revealed some facts that we need to consider some business strategies we need to improve for managing human resources. (Article content in Chinese with English extended abstract)

Keywords

• knowledge activities
• knowledge management
• scale development
• information professionals
• academic librarians