FACILITATING THE INFORMATION LITERACY SKILLS OF POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS OF PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN NORTH GEOPOLITICAL ZONES OF NIGERIA

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper was to assess the level of Information Literacy Skills (ILS)
of Postgraduate (PG) students of public universities in North Geopolitical zone, Nigeria
with a view to facilitating the acquisition of skills. The study adopted quantitative research
method using cross-sectional research design. The study population comprised of 1416
library registered PG students. Proportionate stratified random sampling technique was
used to select 425 of them as sample size for the study. Questionnaire was the only instrument used for data collection; with a total of 425 copies of the questionnaire were
administered to the respondents. However, only 387 were returned and used for the data
analysis, which was done using descriptive statistics. The findings of the study revealed
that the respondents possessed high level of ILS. Occasional workshops, self-study, trial
and error among others are factors facilitating acquisition of ILS. Also, ILS has no
significant relationship with demographic variables of the respondents. These findings’
implications were for the university management, faculty and librarians to provide IL
instruction policy; and also provide insight on areas of IL to work on when advancing the
level of ILS of PG students of the public universities studied. The study concluded that
holding occasional workshops, trial and error, among others might not be enough for the
students to master higher-level skills and become competent lifelong learners. The study
therefore, recommended that the PG students should be exposed to more practical
aspects of higher levels of IL in order to meet the increasing demands of information age.
This paper is an empirical research, which contributes to the frontier of knowledge and
provides driving force in developing necessary framework for designing plan of action for
workable strategies that would encourage inclusion of IL programme at PG level in order
to facilitate acquisition of ILS of the PG students of public universities in North Geopolitical
Zone, Nigeria.