EXTENT OF UTILIZATION OF ELECTRONIC LIBRARY AND SEARCH ENGINES FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES BY POSTGRADUATE BUSINESS EDUCATION STUDENTS IN UNIVERSITIES IN ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

The study investigated the extent of utilization of electronic library and search engines for research purposes by postgraduate business education students in universities in Anambra State. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested at .05 level of significance.  Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 128 postgraduate business education students in the two universities offering postgraduate degree programme in business education in Anambra state as at 2022/2023 academic session. The instrument for data collection was a researcher’s structured questionnaire and validated by three experts in the Faculty of Education, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Igbariam campus. Test of reliability of the instrument for internal consistency using Cronbach Alpha reliability method yielded coefficient values of 0.84 and 0.87 for clusters B1 and B2 respectively with an overall reliability co-efficient of 0 .85. Mean, standard deviation and t-test were used to analyze the research questions and test hypotheses for the study. Findings of the study revealed among others that postgraduate business education students utilize electronic library and search engines for research purposes in public universities in Anambra State to a low extent. Based on these findings, the researcher recommended among others that administrators of the postgraduate schools of universities in conjunction with the administrators of business education programmes should implement comprehensive digital literacy programmes for students.