Academic stress and coping strategies for information seeking among undergraduate students in faculty libraries of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

Abstract

This paper discussed academic stress and coping strategies for information seeking among undergraduate students in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. The research questions used sought to find out the causes of academic stress of the students that come to the libraries, information seeking styles the students exhibit during stressful situation in the libraries and the coping strategies the undergraduate students use during information seeking in the libraries. Cross-sectional survey method was used. Questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection. The data collected for the study were presented and analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentage. The study found out that excessive workload is the cause of academic stress, the information seeking style used by the undergraduate students during stressful situation was by reading the textbook in the faculty’s libraries and relaxation was the coping strategy used by the undergraduate students during stressful condition in the faculties libraries. It was concluded that academic stress has influence on information seeking among undergraduate students of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria that come to the faculties libraries. The study recommended that the work load for undergraduate students of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, should be reduced in order to enable them perform well in their study, Apart from reading textbooks by undergraduate students in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria that come to the faculties libraries with academic stress, other information resources such as websites, databases among others should be used because, through these resources information that can help the students in understanding their field of studies are sought and the undergraduate students in Ahmadu Bello University Zaria should use other stress coping strategies such as seeking professional support, among others in order to reduce the stress face during the use of the library.