Influence of computer literacy skills on the use of library electronic resources among Babcock University undergraduates, Ilisan-Remo, Ogun State

Abstract

Evolutions in information and communication technologies (ICTs) necessitated new tools and skills for searching information, particularly e-resources. However, studies affirmed that many students possess little or none of these required search and retrieval skills. The study, therefore aimed to investigate the influence of computer literacy skills on the use of electronic resources among Babcock University undergraduates, Ilisan-Remo, Ogun State. A survey research design with purposive sampling technique was adopted to select 387 respondents, with the use of questionnaire. The descriptive statistics was used to analyze the research questions and multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that the undergraduates utilized e-resources such as e-dictionary, e-books, online catalog, e-journal etc. for the purpose of updating knowledge (60.9%), class-work (59.1%) more than entertainment (21.9%). Also, it was revealed that undergraduates frequently consult e-resources such as e-journal (90.7%), and e-dissertation and e-thesis (62.5%) than e-databases (1.9%). In addition, undergraduate have high level of computer literacy skills in manipulating electronic information resources (98.4%) than performing data analysis with a computer software package (8.1%). Furthermore, computer literacy skills significantly influenced the use of e-resources among the undergraduates. The study concluded that the higher computer literacy skills, the better the use of e-resources. The study recommended that the university management should frequently organized a computer literacy skills training that focus more on software and database management skills. In addition, the university libraries should organize from time-to-time information literacy training that embrace both the use of print and non-print electronic and web-based resources of libraries while also focusing on information searching, retrieval and evaluation skills.