the survey of factors influencing online search skills of graduate students of shiraz university

this study attempts to measure online search skills among graduate students of shiraz university and to determine their ability in using them. according to the previous studies and available sources in this field, seven online search skills which were the most useable ones and also current skills were selected for this study. also 10 factors which affect these skills were determined. this study intends to measure the factors influencing these skills. in this survey a questionnaire was used for data collection. descriptive and analytical statistics and spss program used for analyzing data. finding reveals that among these seven skills, chronological skill had the highest score but proximity skill was in the lowest level. also among 10 factors influencing skills, finding showed that: age, internet interest and using scientific databases had significant differences with the score of search skills. furthermore engineering students had better skills compared to humanities. in other word, there were significant differences between these two groups.