SOURCE:

Faculty: Education
Department: Library And Information Science

CONTRIBUTORS:

Obiora, K.U;
Anaehobi, E.S;

ABSTRACT:

The study investigated the relationships among information literacy skills acquisition, research self-efficacy, and research anxiety of Library and Information Science (LIS) postgraduate students in Southeast Nigerian Universities. Four research questions guided the study, and four hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. A correlational research design was adopted for the study. The population comprised 326 postgraduate students which included 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 PhD and Master’s Degree students from the Departments of LIS in universities in the Southeast that offer postgraduate programme in LIS. The entire population was studied. Three validated instruments titled Information Literacy Skills Test/cognitive ability test (ILKT); Research Self-Efficacy Scale (RSES) from Büyüköztürk, Atalay, Sozgunc and Kebapçı, and Higgins-Kotrlik Research Anxiety Inventory (RAI) were used for data collection. The instruments were tested for reliability using Kudder-Richardson (K-R20) formulaand Cronbach's alpha (α) test. Using Kudder-Richardson, a reliability coefficient of 0.85 was obtained for ILST. Also, reliability coefficient of 0.86 and 0.85 were obtained for RSES and RAI respectively using Cronbach's alpha which was considered high enough for the instruments to be reliable. Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) and partial correlation coefficient were used to answer research questions and test hypotheses. The findings of the study showed that there waslow negative relationships among information literacy skills acquisition, research self-efficacy and research anxiety of LIS postgraduate students. There was no significant relationship between information literacy skills and research self-efficacy scores as well as between research self-efficacy and research anxiety scores of LIS postgraduate students. However, a significant relationship between information literacy skills and research anxiety scores was observed. Also, there was a significant relationship between information literacy skills and research self-efficacy scores after controlling research anxiety scores as well as between research self-efficacy and research anxiety scores after controlling information literacy skills scores of LIS postgraduate students.Based on the findings, the implications of the study were pointed out, among them is that acquisition of information literacy skills helps to reduce research anxiety.It was recommended among others that the assessment of students’ information literacy skills by the LIS Department, LIS educators and LIS professionals should be employed frequently. This will help determine their strengths and weaknessesin information literacy skills, which will enable the students, know their stand, andthereby encouraging them to acquire these skills where they are lacking as well as instill confidence in their ability to conduct research.