INFORMATION RETRIEVAL SKILLS, PERCEIVED EASE OF USE AND DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES AS DETERMINANTS OF UNDERGRADUATES’ ELECTRONIC RESOURCES UTILISATION FOR RESEARCH IN NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Abstract

There is an increase in provision of electronic resources in Nigerian university libraries, but there is low use of the resources by undergraduates. Some of the students lack information retrieval skills while some do not perceive the e-resources as easy to use. Demographic variables are also known to affect students’ use of e-resources but the extent of the effect is yet to be determined. The study, therefore, investigated the extent to which information retrieval skills, perceived ease of use and demographic variables would determine students’ utilisation of electronic resources in university libraries in Nigeria.

The descriptive research design of the correlational type was adopted. Multistage sampling technique was used to select ten universities while three faculties were purposively selected from the universities. Two departments each were randomly selected from the faculties. Also, 2,469 fourth year students were selected as sample. A questionnaire, “Information Retrieval Skills and Utilisation of Electronic Resources (IRSUER)”: Demographic variables ( r=0.85) : Utilisation (r=0.87) : Perceived Ease of Use (r=0.91) : Retrieval skills (r=0.75) and an interview schedule were used. Four research questions were answered and seven hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance. Qualitative data were content analysed.

Information retrieval skills (r= 0. 242; P<0.05); operational retrieval skills(r=0.214; P<0.05) and strategic retrieval skills(r=0.353; P<0.05) correlated significantly with students’ utilisation of electronic resources for research. Perceived ease of use was found to have significant relationship with students’ utilisation of electronic resources (r=0.343; P<0.05). Information retrieval skills and perceived ease of use correlated positively with students’ use of electronic resources (r=0.434). Course of study has significant relationship with students’ use of e-resources (r=0.052; p<0.05). Students in the humanities were found to use e-resources as much as other students in sciences and social sciences. Perceived ease of use made the highest relative contribution to utilisation of e- resources (β=0.400; P<0.05) followed by strategic retrieval skills (β=0.204; P<0.05). Informational retrieval skills made contribution of (β=0.064; P<0.05) while operational retrieval skills did not have significant relative contribution to students’ utilisation of electronic resources. Age and gender did not have significant relationship with students’ use of e- resources. Interview result showed that undergraduates lacked requisite skills for the use of e-resources. It also revealed that power failure, lack of funds, insufficient number of staff in the unit and low bandwidth are some of the challenges that impede e-resources use.

Information retrieval skills constitute the most critical factor in undergraduates’ use of e-resources. Though the undergraduates are disposed to use of electronic resources’ they require capacity building for maximum utilisation. University libraries should therefore educate students on the use of electronic resources