Measuring autonomy, competence and relatedness of users needs’ satisfaction on use of reference sources and services by undergraduates

Abstract

There is a dearth of literature on users‟ need satisfaction from the psychological (mental and emotional) aspects of the variable as it affects usage of reference sources and services hence this study to measure autonomy, competence and relatedness of users needs‟ satisfaction on use of reference sources and services by undergraduates students. In view of this four null hypotheses were generated for the study. Survey research design was adopted for a population of 29,013 undergraduate students across the three selected universities under study. Simple random sampling technique was used and Yamane formula for determining sampling size was used to arrive at 400 undergraduates. Questionnaire was used to elicit data with 100% response rate analysed using correlation and multiple regression. The findings show that autonomy, competence and relatedness influence the use of reference sources and services. Also, the linear combination of the three independent variables influences the use of reference sources and services. It was thus recommended that libraries should create a friendly culture while reference service personnel develop their organisational citizen behaviour. It was also recommended that libraries should organised information literacy programmes to help increase the competency level of users.

Keywords: Autonomy, Competence, Needs‟ satisfaction, Reference sources and services, Relatedness and Undergraduate students