Role of library anxiety on cooperative group performance

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the extent that cooperative group members' levels of library anxiety, operationalized as barriers with staff, affective barriers, comfort with the library, knowledge of the library and mechanical barriers, predict: group performance, namely, the quality of an article critique assignment and research proposal assignment; and the degree that heterogeneity (namely, variability of the five library anxiety dimensions) is related to this outcome variable.Design/methodology/approachParticipants were 107 postgraduate students enrolled in a research methodology course at a mid‐southern university in the USA. Groups (n = 1) formed the unit of analysis. An all possible subsets multiple regression analysis was used to identify an optimal combination of library anxiety variables that predicted the group performance score.FindingsIt was found that cooperative learning groups attaining the lowest scores on the article critique and research proposal assignments combined tended to report the least variation with respect to barriers with staff and knowledge of the library, and the greatest variation with respect to affective barriers. These variables explained 41.8 per cent of the variance in performance, suggesting that library anxiety plays a role in the cooperative learning group process.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is based on a relatively small sample of postgraduate students from one university. Replications of this study with larger samples from different universities are needed to help validate the findings.Practical implicationsThe findings may help academic librarians and educators who work with postgraduate or adult students better understand the debilitating effects of library anxiety on these students' academic performance.Originality/valueTo date, no research has investigated levels of library anxiety on the performance of cooperative learning groups.