Influence of User Education Programme on Distance Learning Students’ Use of Library Resources

Abstract

Effective use of library resources by distance learning students is a vital tool for improvement in long –life learning skills, information searching and research. Any higher institution devoid of effective library user education programme is bound to have poor learning outcome. Hence, the study evaluated the user-education programmes of selected national Open University of Nigeria libraries. Three research questions were asked to guide the study. The descriptive survey research design was adopted. Simple random sampling was used to select a sample of 808 second year students drawn from the three Centers: Kaduna (200), Enugu (348) and Apapa (260). Data was collected through a researcher developed questionnaire, interview schedule and observation checklist duly validated by three lecturers from department of library and information science, university of Nigeria Nsukka and was used to collect data from students. The result was analyzed using Mean and Standard deviation.  The findings revealed among others that a positive influence existed in favour of user education, especially when the Duration of library orientation period is increased and made compulsory for all registered students. Based on the findings, the researcher recommends that, effort should be made to improve user education programme in National Open university of Nigeria.