Librarian’s Computer Self-Efficacy as Correlate for Creation of Institution Repository in South-South Universities in Nigeria

ERAVWOKE, Ejomafuvwe¹, Prof. AKPORUNOR, Blessing A.², OGBOMO, Monday O. (PhD) ³

¹Department of Library and Information Science School of Applied Sciences, Federal Polytechnic Orogun, Delta State

^2,3Department of Library and Information Science, Delta State University, Abraka

ABSTRACT: This study investigated librarian’s computer self-efficacy as correlate for creation of Institution Repository in South-South universities in Nigeria. The study employed the descriptive survey design of the correlational type and the population for the study consisted of 181 librarians drawn from public university libraries in south-south Nigeria. The instrument for data collection is the structured questionnaire titled “Librarians Computer Self-efficacy as Correlate for Creation of Institutional Repository Questionnaire (LCSCCIRQ)”. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency and mean to answer the research questions. Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) and multiple regression statistics was used to test the Hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that: (i) there was a high level of general computer self-efficacy among librarians towards the creation of IR in the universities in South-South Nigeria; (ii) librarians possesses high level of advanced computer-self efficacy skills towards the creation of IR in the universities; (iii) librarians are highly willing to create IR in their institutions; (iv) both librarians general computer self-efficacy and advanced computer-self efficacy influenced the creation of IR in South-South, Nigeria. It was therefore recommended that librarians should continue to improve on their current state of computer-self efficacy skills most especially the advanced computer-self efficacy in order to be fully equipped to fit into the 21^st century technology, and be prepared at all times to take up new challenges as regards new inventions in the library (IR).

KEYWORDS: Librarian’s Computer Self-Efficacy Computer Self-Efficacy Self-Efficacy Creation of Institution Repository South-South Universities

INTRODUCTION

The fast-growing rate of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in contemporary time has considerably revolutionized the educational sector into making teaching and learning more accessible and flexible.  In spite of the challenges associated with ICT in education, it has provided flexibilities in sourcing and dissemination of information (Beal, 2017). One of such growing ICT invention that could ease the access to institutional publication for effective record management, teaching, learning and research is the institution repository (IR).

According to Godfrey, Antia-Bong and Ubonte (2021) IR is a collection which captures, maintains, save, index preserve and redistribute the entire scholarly output of an institution in a digital format. This means that it is a digitized well- organized collections of information bearing materials that emanates from a particular institution that is made accessible to its users. It can also be regarded as the wealth of knowledge of an institution stored in a single digital medium for easy access and dissemination. The focus on the collection of an IR should be more on unpublished materials such as projects, dissertations, thesis, inaugural lecture papers and other vital administrative documents since these kinds of documents are not easily and readily found online.

Institution repository is a relatively new innovation that has taken the global stage because of its usefulness in institutions. It is not limited to educational bodies alone as it encompasses all governmental and non-governmental institutions and agencies for proper storage, record management, transparency, accountability and dissemination of information.  Institution repository is well established, used and maintained in the western world but it is still at an infant stage in Africa. Out of the 54 countries in Africa, record has shown that only 25 countries has an IR, leaving 29 countries with no trace of existing IR (African Digital Research Repositories, 2023). This shows the level of underdevelopment in Africa. Nigerian being the giant of Africa who is supposed to take the lead in such a beneficiary invention is also lacking behind as it seats at number three (3) among countries with the most IR in Africa. South Africa came first with 40 IR, Kenya came second with 32 IR while Nigeria came third with 22 Recorded IR (African Digital Research Repositories, 2023).  It should also be noted that of all the non-educational institution, agencies, organization and parastatals in Nigeria, only the Central Bank of Nigeria has an institutional repository (Adewole-Odeshi & Ezechukwu, 2020). And this accounts for poor management of information to the general public and lack of transparencies in the institutions and agencies.  The lack of establishment of IR in the universities by librarians could be attributed to certain factors some of which include their computer self-efficacy.

Computers are major devices used in running the institution repositories, and proficiency in its usage will aid librarians to provide quality services to its users. Computer self-efficacy is an important skill required in the creation and utilization of IR. To fully maximize the potentials of creating an IR, librarians need to examine their computer self-efficacy levels. This is necessary considering the fact that the IR will run on a computer system, and since IR are technology dependent, there is, therefore, the need for high computer self-efficacy (Wolverton, Guidry-Hollier & Lanier, 2020).

Computer self efficacy has to be with the level of confidence one has in operating various programs in a computer system. It is the level of comfort at which a librarian uses computer devices such as desktop, laptop mini-computer, to perform tasks. According to Gumelar, Martadi, Rosalinda,Yudhaningrum,Warju (2021), computer self efficacy as an individual’s  believe in performing certain computer-related tasks in a general computing domain. It is the degree to which one can man over or navigate through the computer without stress. Since most operations of an automated library are controlled through a computer, it is therefore expedient that librarians should equip themselves before they can be able to operate system effectively.

Computer self-efficacy is divided into two skills, the general computer self-efficacy skill and advanced computer self-efficacy skills and librarians needs both for the creation and effective utilization of IR and other computer related inventions. The general computer self efficacy seeks to describe how effective one can perform various operations and functions of the computer device such as booting on the computer, hibernating, shutting down, opening files, typing, knowing the various programs and what they are used for, for example, Ms word for typing, excel for spread sheet, word Art for designs, browser for internet services etc. While the advanced computer self-efficacy has to do with skills required to use various programs and software in the computer systems. Such as formatting the system, installation of various programmes, making audio-visual clips, using power-points, excel, corel draws, fixing minor problems and troubleshooting etc. All this knowledge prepares and boost the effectiveness of a librarian when he/she is in a digital environment.

With the availability of ICT facilities in university libraries, it is expected that librarians who possess the skills to manipulate computers would find it easy to create and use an IR. This study, therefore, examined librarians computer self-efficacy as correlate for the creation of institution repository in university libraries in south-south, Nigeria.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

In the educational sector, one of the means to ascertain the worth of a university is the quality and quantity of research output it has, and this can only be accessed globally through the help of IR (Anenene, Alegbeleye & Oyewole, 2017). For an institution to be known around the globe, such institution must secure its space on the web. This is to ensure full visibility of the achievements of the institution and rewarded accordingly amongst others. The creation of IR makes it possible for universities to be ranked, and lecturers/contributors rewarded and recognized according to their intellectual output and achievements. It appears that the daily research outputs from universities most especially gray information materials are not widely communicated to users and researchers all over the world, and this has affected its accessibility and usability most especially in Nigeria. This situation has made it very difficult to evaluate Nigerian university’s intellectual output and has hindered its visibility and ranking among world best universities. This is why only very few Nigerian universities who have a functional IR are seen in the world ranking list. Considering the damages of the non-creation of IR to the Nigerian educational system, it is only rational for all institutions in the country to take up the challenge of creating one. But it is sad to note that only a handful of universities in Nigeria have established it and more worrisome is the case of universities is south-south Nigeria which has only one IR. It is to this end that this study seeks to investigate the librarians computer self-efficacy as correlate for the creation of IR in universities in south-south, Nigeria.

Research Questions

1. What is librarian’s level of general computer self-efficacy skills towards the creation of IR in the university libraries in South-South, Nigeria?
2. What is librarian’s level of advanced computer self-efficacy skills towards the creation of IR in the university libraries in South-South, Nigeria?
3. To what extent are librarians willing to create IR in the university libraries in South-South, Nigeria?

Hypothesis

H0₁: There is no significant relationship between librarian’s computer self-efficacy levels and creation of IR in universities in South-South Nigeria

METHODOLOGY

This research design adopted for this study is the descriptive survey design (correlational type). The population for the study consists of 181 librarians from the public university libraries in South-South, Nigeria and the entire population was used for the study. The total enumeration sampling technique was adopted for the study. The structured questionnaire was the instrument for data collection. The face and content validity of the instrument was ascertained by two experts in the department of Library and Information Science. The reliability of the instrument was ascertained using the spearman Brown Prophecy Formula correlation coefficient (r) and it yielded reliability co-efficient (r) of 0.81. The data obtained was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency and mean to answer the research questions, while the hypotheses was tested using Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) with the aids of statistical package for the social science (SPSS).

 RESULTS

Research Question One: What is librarian’s level of general computer self-efficacy skills towards the creation of IR in the university libraries in South-South, Nigeria?

To determine librarian’s level of general computer self-efficacy skills towards the creation of IR, the respondents were asked to respond to the following items by ticking the appropriate boxes provided as applicable to them. Their responses are provided in Table 1.

Table 1: Librarians level of General Computer Self-Efficacy skills towards the Creation of IR

Table 1 showed a mean of 3.01 which is greater than the criterion mean of 2.50. With a grand mean of 3.01 which is higher than the criterion mean of 2.50, it can be inferred that librarians posses a high level of general computer self-efficacy skills towards the creation of IR in the university libraries in south-south Nigeria.

Research Question Two: What is librarian’s level of advanced computer self-efficacy skills towards the creation of IR in the university libraries in South-South, Nigeria?

Table 2: Librarians level of advanced Computer Self-Efficacy skills towards the Creation of IR

From Table 2 it can be seen that the mean of librarian level of advanced computer self-efficacy skill is 2.54. With a mean of 2.54 which is higher than the criterion mean of 2.50, it can be concluded that librarians posses a high level of advanced computer self-efficacy skills towards the creation of IR in the university libraries in south-south Nigeria. Also, it is evident from both mean that librarians possess more skills on the general computer self-efficacy (3.01) than the advanced computer self-efficacy (2.54). This is an indication that though their computer self-efficacy is high, librarians needs to improve on their advance computer self-efficacy level in order to be very confident and face any challenges as regards computer programmes and usage.

Research Question Three: To what extent are librarians willing to create IR in the university libraries in South-South, Nigeria?

Table 3: Librarians Willingness to Create IR

The analysis on Table 3 showed that librarians are highly willing to create IR in their institutions. This can be seen in their responses which culminated to an aggregate mean of 3.06 which is greater than the criterion mean of 2.50. With an aggregate mean of 3.06, it is established that librarians are highly willing to create IR in the university libraries in south-south, Nigeria.

H0₁: There is no significant relationship between librarian’s computer self-efficacy levels and creation of IR in universities in South-South Nigeria.

Table 4: Relationship between Librarians’ Computer Self-efficacy and Creation of IR

Results from Table 4, established the fact that there is a positive relationship between librarians Computer Self Efficacy and creation of IR (r = 0.298**, N = 181, P = 0.000** (P < 0.05)). The relationship tested significant since the significant value of 0.000 is less than 0.05. It can therefore be concluded that librarians’ computer self-efficacy level significantly influenced the creation of IR, hence the null hypothesis which stated that there is no significant relationship between librarian’s computer self-efficacy levels and creation of IR in universities in South-South Nigeria is therefore rejected.

DISCUSSION

The study result shows that librarians possess a high level of advanced computer self-efficacy skills towards the creation of IR in the university libraries in south-south Nigeria. This is an indication that though their computer self-efficacy is high, librarians needs to improve on their advance computer self-efficacy level in order to be very confident and face any challenges as regards computer programmes and usage. These findings are in agreement with that of Olawale and Popoola (2021), whose study revealed a high computer self-efficacy level of respondent towards the use of electronic information resources. This finding may be because of the nature of librarians jobs which require them to constantly make use of the computer system in rendering services. Making constant use of the computer may have made them master its usage and enable them use the system with ease thereby increasing their confidence level (computer self – efficacy). However, the study disagreed with that of Eserada, Okolo and Ideh (2019) whose study revealed a low computer self-efficacy among his respondent.

The study result established that librarians are highly willing to create IR in the university libraries in south-south, Nigeria.  Additionally, this finding is in disagreement with that of Jelagat, Odini and Wamukoya (2020) whose study revealed that librarians are unawareness of their roles hence they are unwilling to create and use IR. Librarians’ willingness to create IR could be as a result of the improvement in their technological readiness and possession of required skills to operate the IR overtime. The perceived numerous benefits librarians stand to gain if the IR is to be created could also be a reason for their change of taught.

The study established the fact that there is a positive relationship between librarians Computer Self Efficacy and creation of IR. It can therefore be concluded that librarians’ computer self-efficacy level significantly influenced the creation of IR. This finding is in concurrence with that of Umar, Azeez and Haruna (2020) whose study revealed that respondents use of electronic information resources is often directly proportional to the level of their computer self-efficacy.

CONCLUSION

Conclusively, it has been established that librarians in universities in south-south Nigeria possess a high level of computer self-efficacy though their general computer self-efficacy is higher than their advanced self-efficacy. The study has also revealed a significant relationship between librarians’ computer self-efficacy and creation of IR in the region. This implies that librarian’s computer self-efficacy influenced the creation of IR universities in South-South, Nigeria.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Librarians should not relent in the improvement of their computer self-efficacy especially their advanced computer-self efficacy skills to be able to match-up with the varying task in using computers to render services and the creation of IR.
2. Since librarians are highly willing to create IR, they should showcase their skills in its creation of IR, and do everything possible to turn the dream of creating an IR a reality.

REFERENCES

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