Conducive environment as precursor to school library use among secondary school students in Ibadan South West Local Government Area, Oyo State Nigeria

Abstract

The poor school library usage among secondary school students motivated the study. The main objective was to examine conducive environment and school library use habit among private secondary school students in Ibadan Southwest Local Government Area Oyo state Nigeria. The descriptive research design of the correlational type was adopted for the study. The study population was 2416 SS2 Students in 56 registered private secondary schools in Ibadan Southwest Local Government Area, Oyo State Nigeria. A total of 430 respondents was drawn from the population using a multistage sampling procedure. A self-structured questionnaire was used as instrument to elicit responses. The library use scale and resource adequacy sections measured 0.71 and 0.81 reliability scores respectively. Descriptive statistics were used to answer research questions 1 and 2 while inferential statistics through Pearson Product Moment Correlation was used to test the hypothesis. Findings from the study revealed that location of the library, accessibility of library, suitable table/desk for studying were the most conducive items under conducive environment. The most prevalent purpose of use of library was to prepare for examination, while highest frequency of use of library was 2-3 times per week. Textbooks was the most utilised among library resources. A positive significant relationship between conducive environment and school library use habit among the private secondary school students was established. The study recommended that conducive library environment should be deployed as a strategy for improving school library use habit among the private secondary school students.

Keywords: School library; Conducive library environment; Library use; Private secondary schools; Ibadan South-West; LGA; Oyo State; Nigeria