Behaviour towards ICT and Library Anxiety

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 67 ( 2012 ) 182 – 188

1877-0428 © 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.Selection and peer-review under responsibility of i-Learn Centre, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysiadoi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.11.319

The 3rd International Conference on e-Learning ICEL2011, 23-24 November 2011, Bandung, Indonesia

Behaviour towards ICT and Library Anxiety

Haslinda Husainia*, Rafidah Abdul Aziza, Che Zainab Abdullaha, Yanty Rahayu Ramblia

Faculty of Information Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract

The rapid progress in technology has imposed multiple parties to follow the popular trend. But with that taken into consideration, the willingness of the user has to be taken into account. Primarily, in relation to seeking the existing or new information, presenting the accessible information can be through various techniques. In today’s fast-paced society, resources such as libraries provide their users with new methods of application which can be retrieved via online databases. Thus, in order to face this new form of information presentation, the users have to be prepared. With this in mind, the purpose of this study is to measure the area of library anxiety and to identify the ability of library users utilizing computers. This research was conducted by using single quantitative method, as well as a set of questionnaires had been distributed amongst the Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) students. The findings from this study indicated that both the behavior of ICT and library anxiety do not correlate in determining the use of the library. The findings of this research also can be beneficial in Library Management issues and trends in library services. © 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of i-Learn Centre, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.

Keywords: Library anxiety; ICT behavior; electronic resources; information literacy

* Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected]

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

© 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.Selection and peer-review under responsibility of i-Learn Centre, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia

183 Haslinda Husaini et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 67 ( 2012 ) 182 – 188

1. Introduction

It has been decades since librarians as well as library educators started to conduct observation with regards to students whether some of them feel comfortable while having effective use of the library compared to others. Besides, the thought that students vary in their levels of anxiety experienced when using academic libraries is no more alien to us. Lately, there is a formal investigation or research been undertaken on the nature, etiology, characteristics as well as consequences of this phenomenon so-called library anxiety. Even though it was found that the pervasiveness of library anxiety among college students has been recognized by librarians and library educators, yet there are still certain questions arise in order to verify whether library anxiety is a real phenomenon. The importance of library anxiety among graduate students is particularly challenged and this is resulting from the all-too-often assumption that graduate students enrolled in their degree programmes are sufficiently prepared in utilizing the library (Onwuegbuzie, 1997). In this new era, Libraries are also required to provide technological sources in order to smooth the progress of the retrieval of relevant information from multiple sources among the students. Those required resources are accessed through computer-related technologies such as online data systems and databases (Jerabek, Meyer, & Kordinak, 2001). However, certain factors had been identified in the recent research in the area of students’ attitudes regarding to library and computer usage (Fliotsos, 1992; Jerabek et al., Onwuegbuzie & Jiao, 1997; Ovens, 1991; Sievert, Albritton, Roper, & Clayton, 1988). The extensive utilization of computer technologies (i.e., Internet and various computerized databases) in the context of university coursework intensifies on the reason why it is important to assess students’ attitudes toward using computer-based resources as well as other library resources. On top of that, computer anxiety, lack of confidence, and lack of enjoyment do influence both the acceptance of computers as well as the use of it as teaching and learning tools (Gressard & Loyd, 1986; Smith & Kotrlik, 1990; Woodrow, 1991; Fletcher & Deeds, 1994) which can be seen as contribution to library anxiety.

Lack of computer skills also has been found to be a factor that influences this anxiety (Gressard & Loyd, 1986) which is believed as a contributing reason why many students have not been welldisposed to computers and consequently deprived of their usefulness in the classroom (c.f. Collins, 1996). Therefore, this study has been carried out to examine the relationship between digital era and library anxiety, focusing on students behaviors’ of ICT in minimizing library anxiety in Tun Abdul Razak 1 Library (PTAR 1), Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM).

2. Literature Review

The thought that students vary in their levels of anxiety experienced when using academic libraries is no more an issue. The understanding in the types of instructional programs is most likely to deliver to citizens, who are information literate, as they may become the fundamental substance to library professionals. Even so, it seems that there has been a relative lack of stress placed upon the more emotional and psychological factors which are connected to effective library use such as feelings of insufficiency and insecurity (Mellon, 1988). Mellon (1986) started to use the term “Library Anxiety” when study had shown that between 75 and 85 per cent of students had the feeling and experienced anxiety, which shows the negative feeling when they first used the library. However, the traditional skills are still demanded, but they need to expand their competency to handle the new digital formats and the online environment that has been provided. Therefore, computers have been used in education for more than four decades, and they have now been accepted “unconditionally” as an integral part of the entire educational system. The increase in computer use has been rapid and has also generated new challenges. There are studies shown that computer anxiety, lack of confidence, and lack of enjoyment influence both the acceptance of computers and the usage of the students as a tool during their teaching and learning process (Gressard & Loyd, 1986; Smith & Kotrlik, 1990; Woodrow, 1991; Fletcher & Deeds, 1994).


With the existence of the Electronic Research (e-Research) as well as the data related that have been surged clearly, have major implications for libraries. Even so, it remains to be seen what the students will do and the differences between library and information services would have responded to these massive challenges. Beyond that, some find that with the existence of these new form of information presentation are not only to support, however, are enriching information seeking experience compared to the more traditional methods (Brindley, 2009). 2.1 E-Science And E-Research – Life Beyond The Document

E-Science, e-Research, as well as the data related that have been surged clearly, have major implications for libraries. Even so, it remains to be seen what their impact will be and how different library and information services would have responded to the massive challenges. A main study is in progress in the UK for the assessment of the feasibility and costs of the development as well as the maintenance of a national shared digital research data service for the UK Higher Education and research sector. This particular study seems to lead to several pathfinder projects and it also increases join-up in provision between a range of existing data archives, libraries and data centers which includes the British Library that foresee a navigational role to quality, validated source. The challenge of data overflow is closely related to e-Science at the moment, but it is improvingly relevant to all disciplines, whereby the scale of the challenge that is being dealt with, is large and without precedent. It signifies vast technology, metadata as well as digital storage analysis and it also brings up certain issues in regards to long-term retention and reuse of data, needing skills of data curation, which are currently in short, supply and certainly not present in many research libraries. 2.2 Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 – beyond the technologies

The second issue is regarding the examination of Web 2.0 and 3.0 as well as the bottomless changes which run beyond the technologies. Most of us have become excited with the Web 2.0 and its new capabilities as well as opportunities for service development. Web 2.0 offers the chance for the transformation of our interactions with the Internet, starting from the Web 1.0 world of interactions between individuals and information to a world of sharing or collaborative content development of group working and social networking.

The need to deal with the developing genre regarding the authorship has come about because of the web, but also followed by new ways of expressing things in an interactive space, as well as how it is able to become multi-way communication and engagement. All these factors challenge the traditional perspectives of peer view, authority, mediation, and authenticity, the role of majority of the players as well as professionals and the knowledge value chain.

This has become a major challenge especially to the academic community since it relates more to the Library. Therefore, it is important to look for new roles and also opportunities in this messier, more dynamic and democratic world. It also provides challenges to the brand of Research University and a research library, whereby they are indelibly associated with authenticity, independence and also long-term quality. 2.3 Information literacy for 21st century

Nowadays, young people demonstrate a noticeable ease and familiarity with computers. It is where they rely more to search engines rather than doing reading and they do not even practice the critical or analytical skills to assess the information that they find on the web. These types of behaviors’ slowly increase in order to become the norm for all age-groups, ranging from younger pupils to undergraduates through to professors. Towards this, a study was conducted to achieve the following objectives:


To measure area of library anxiety among the library users. To identify the ability of using computers among the library users.

3. Methodology

This study adopted the descriptive design research and was conducted in a quantitative manner. A quantitative approach was used to gather the data by distribution of questionnaire to respondents. The samples were the students studying at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM). Out of 500 questionnaires distributed to the students, 400 completely answered and replied. A self-administered questionnaire was designed to gather data from subjects on the studied variables. There were six variables used in this study, which were 1) Barriers with staff variables 2) Comfort with the library variables 3) Affective variables 4) Knowledge variables 5) Library orientation variables 6) Mechanical variables. The questionnaire was divided into two sections. Section A contained the socio-demographic information, while Section B contained the six parts of questions related to the dependent variable which is digital era. Table 1 depicts the measures of the study from the demographic data.

4. Results And Discussions

4.1 The relationship between independent variables and dependent variables

The correlation coefficient can be used when the data are binary for measuring the relationship between variables (Hair, 2006; Bryman & Cramer, 2009). It is almost always preferable to measure the effects of the independent variable on the dependent variable, not by correlation coefficients but by unstandardized regression coefficients. The section analysis is based on the summated scale of combining several variables that measure the same concept into a single variable in an attempt to increase reliability of the measurement (Hair et al., 2006). Pearson's r can vary in magnitude from −1 to 1, with −1 indicating a perfect negative linear relation, 1 indicating a perfect positive linear relation, and 0 indicating no linear relation between two variables. The researcher followed Cohen’s model guidelines in indicating the relationship of variables: small effect size, r = 0.1 − 0.23; medium, r = 0.24 − 0.36; large, r = 0.37 or larger (Cohen, 1988; 1992).


Table 1: Demographic Profiles of Respondents

The study represents a number of students or library users at Perpustakaan Tun Abdul Razak 1 (PTAR

1). Table 1 presents the demographic profiles of the research samples. ANOVA test was performed to measure the relationship between variables. The correlation of gender and program/faculty were found the most significant with the dependent variables which is digital era at the 0.01 level. As exhibited in table 2, the correlation matrix indicates that from the six variables it is appears one more factors that contributed to the study. A factor 7 is a strong relationship and very significant with the study whereby the element consists of the resources that available in PTAR 1. Table 2. Variables correlations


Table 3. Summary of Regression Model between Behavior of ICT and Library Anxiety

Table 4. Summary of Coefficient for Regression Model between Behavior of ICT and Library Anxiety

Table 3 and 4 depicts the results of linear regression between Behavior of ICT and Library Anxiety. The result was noted that the value of Pearson’s r=0.217 while R2 =0.047. These figures show that moderate relationship exist 21.7% of the variation of behavior of ICT toward minimizing library anxiety.

5. Conclusions

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between behavior of ICT and library anxiety. Findings from this study indicated that all six variables do matter in determining the library anxiety. In this respect, the library needs to focus on user education to the practices and provide a friendly services and facilities to their library users in gaining recognition to their user satisfaction. The library should organize more user education programs especially in the electronic resources and library services. A library is recommended to conduct a promotional activity to introduce the user of the library services, also to get along with the user so that it will build a network or a relationship between these parties. A good relationship and trust among users and library staffs are important because psychological users can interact willingly with the people they are familiar with. A responsive gesture should be expressed, so that users know that they are welcomed. Besides that, a library tour or library orientation is firmly recommended, as it is an easier way to expose the users with the library services, how to use the services, where to go to as well as other guides. Hence, the anxious feeling faced by users can be reduced.

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