Online First

There is no doubt that students ranging from universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, monotechnic to technical colleges use the e-resources for various purposes. Ajayi, Shorunke, and Aboyade (2014) examined the e-resources use influence on students' reading culture at Adeleke University in Osun State, Nigeria. The studies employed a survey research method with the target population of 705 undergraduates, a simple random sampling technique was adopted in the study with a questionnaire as the major instrument used for data collection while data collected were analyzed through frequency counts and percentages. The study found that the majority of the respondents 152(71.7%) acknowledged that they used the e-resources mostly for academic purposes. In line with the above statement, Adeniran (2013) investigated e-resources usage among Redeemer's University undergraduates in Nigeria and found that a large proportion of the respondents 250(21.8%) agreed that e-resources is mainly used for assignment purposes followed by information while fewer 135(11.8%) used the e-resources for electronic mail (E-mail).

Quadri, Adetimirin, and Idowu (2014) studied the availability and utilization of library e-resources among undergraduates in Private Universities in Nigeria and found that the majority (64%) of the respondents from Babcock and (89.1%) from Redeemer's universities use the e-resources for assignment and research/project purposes. Shehu and Idakwo (2017); Dada and Eghworo (2020) reported that electronic news, research and assignment were the main purposes the students use large e-resources for. Adeyoyin, Idowu, and Sowole (2016) found that students at the seminary schools in Nigeria use the e-resources for assignments, to broaden knowledge in the subject areas. Furthermore, Okunoye (2021) averred that a large proportion of students 80% use the e-resources for assignments and downloading educational materials purposes.

Tlakula and Fombad (2017) examined the use of e-resources among undergraduates at Venda University in South Africa. The study adopted the snowball of non-probability sampling technique. The qualitative (interview) method was adopted as the method of data collection and the data collected were coded and transcribed. the study revealed that all the ten respondents interviewed used the e-resources for assignments and tests. Akuffo and Budu (2019) reported in their study on e-resources use among postgraduates in Ghanaian theological university and found that majority of the respondents 33(100%) agreed that they use the e-resources to review literature, followed by 29(87.9%) who indicated that e-resources is used to complete assignment while the least 10(30.3%) noted that they used them to supplement study notes. This implies that undergraduates are aware of the benefits of e-resources to their academic pursuit has it assist them in assignment completion, preparation for test and for research work.

Frequency has to do with how many times people use resources over a period. Tlakula and Fombad (2017) reported in their study that out of ten respondents interviewed on the frequency of use of e-resources, five agreed that they use them on regular basis, three acknowledged that the e-resources were used occasionally, one respondent noted that the e-resources are used twice a week, while only one does not use it at all due to lack of computer literacy. Similarly, Ajayi, Shorunke, and Aboyade (2014) also noted in their study that more than half 195(91.98%) of the respondents rarely utilize the e-resources and 188(88.68%) of them use the e-resources very often while only 12(5.66%) agreed they never use them at all. In the same vein, Adeniran (2013) reported that a large proportion 90(73.2%) of the respondents acknowledged that they use the internet on regular basis, 45(25.1%) of the respondents agreed that they use Online occasionally, while OPAC was rarely165(30.1) used by them and 145(33.7%) never used the CD-ROM at all.

In corroborating the above findings, Quadri, Adetimirin, and Idowu (2014) discovered that majority 84(42%) of the respondents from Babcock University used the internet on daily basis, while only 15(7.5%) of them used the e-journals on daily basis and most of them 78(39.0%) never used the CD-ROM at all. Also, it was reported that less than half 22(40%) of them from Redeemer’s University used the internet on daily basis, while most of them 42(76.4%) used the online databases occasionally and only 2(3.6%) of them used the OPAC once a week. In addition, Shehu and Idakwo (2017) found that half 50(50%) of the respondents used e-resources once a month. It could be deduced from the above that e-resources are moderately utilized frequently by students. This may be attributed to the fact that the students see the essential of e-resources in their academic endeavors.

Students may be eager to use the available e-resources for their academic pursuits, but they encountered various hiccups when using as well as accessing e-resources. Dada and Eghworo (2020), Ajayi, Shorunke, and Aboyade (2014) and Adeniran (2013) found in their study that large proportion of the respondents 155(73.11%) agreed that poor internet facility was a major challenge to e-resources usage among the students while erratic power supply, lack of training of students on e-resources usage, inadequate skill/ICT skills and lack of facilities to e-resources use were rated low. Furthermore, Okunoye (2021) found that about 50% of students indicated challenges to satisfactory usage of e-resources to include erratic electricity supply, lack of skill and time, lack of training, excess academic workload, inadequate knowledge of computer literacy as well as ineffective management and maintenance.

Shehu and Idakwo (2017), Quadri, Adetimirin, and Idowu (2014) acknowledged that poor internet connectivity, lack of relevant e-resources in various disciplines, lack of proper training, inadequate subscription to database, epileptic power supply as well as technical know-how were listed challenges to the use of e-resources among the students. Fyneman, Idiedo, and Ebhomeya (2014) also reported the slow internet connection, poor infrastructure, access restricted to some databases, insufficient access time, poor ICT skills and knowledge as well as high cost of printing were challenges faced among Niger Delta undergraduate students on the use of e-resources.

Furthermore, Ternenge and Kashimana (2019), Ugwu and Orsu (2017), Adeyoyin, Idowu, and Sowole (2016) and Akporhonor and Akpojotor (2016) acknowledged that challenges like lack of sufficient knowledge of electronic information resources (EIR), hardware operations, lack of browsing skills, financial problems to procure EIR gadgets, information overload, funding, erratic electricity supply, poor ICT infrastructure, safety of EIR tools as well as insufficient knowledge of software applications were faced by the students when using EIR. Manzo and Kannan (2021) reported problem such as technological change, lack of budgeting, licenses problem, lack of staff, inadequate ICT facilities, e-resources policy were identified hiccups facing e-resources usage among Nigerian students.

Madondo, Sithole, and Chisita (2017) reported in Zimbabwe that more than half of the respondents 70% were faced with slow/unreliable internet connection problems when using e-resources followed by the insufficient number of workstations in the library while only 4% agreed that irrelevant databases problem was faced. Gakibayo, Ikoja-Odongo, and Okello-Obura (2013) found among Ugandan students that lack of computer skills and information literacy skills, lack of enough computers in the library and slow internet bandwidth were the challenges encountered in the use of e-resources. In addition, Akuffo and Budu (2019) revealed in their study on e-resources utilization among Ghanaian postgraduate schools that accessibility problems, staff-related issues as well as information search and retrieval skills problems were faced when using e-resources.

This study is anchored by the Anomalous State of Knowledge Theory (ASK) propounded in 1980 by Belkin. The theory basically centers on information retrieval (IR) that is, focused on a system of communication. The theory stated that IR systems assist people through knowledge that is communicated in a human relationship. It is important to note that this IR theory/model is basically a model of document retrieval. The major challenges of the model are the traditional IR system construction, where the traditional IR system presumed that users always know the information they wanted on databases as such, they should be able to specify and obtain the result that matches their request from the system. Invariance, Belkin argued against this notion and stressed that the traditional way of searching information was not useful in assisting users to resolve their information needs and undermined the system effectiveness.

According to Belkin, the ASK theory summarized the following three key areas:

• ㆍThe person recognizes a need for information
• ㆍThe person presents a query (request) to an information retrieval system, which returns information in the form of text
• ㆍThe person then evaluates the information obtained from the system and determines if the user need is totally satisfied, partly satisfied or not satisfied at all

Belkin (1980) stated further that problems arise whenever a person realizes that his or her state of knowledge is not sufficient in quantity and quality to make a decision or attain a certain goal. Belkin further observed that it is difficult for users to request assistance and suggests that users should be asked to describe what they know on a subject or topic to determine what is missing. This theory is relevant to the study because it addresses the problem related to IR with regard to e-resources use among students. It then implies that, if students are assisted in possessing requisite information literacy skills, they would use e-resources effectively for academic activities. Thereby it is chosen as a framework to explain the use of electronic information resources.

The study was guided by three objectives formulated and descriptive survey research design was also adopted. The method relies heavily on quantitative method of data gathering (Quadri & Idowu, 2016), acknowledged that the survey method is popular and mostly utilize in the field of humanities as well as social sciences.

The population of this study comprised the National Diploma (ND) and Higher National Diploma (HND) students in The Polytechnic, Ibadan and Federal Polytechnic Ede, Osun State. A preliminary survey through personal contact and a phone call from the two institutions revealed that there were 3984 students in Federal Polytechnic Ede and 5687 students in The Polytechnic, Ibadan. Therefore, the population of this study comprised 9671 students as depicted in Table 1.

A multi-stage sampling technique was adopted for this study in order to have a good representation of the population. The purposive sampling method was adopted at the first stage where faculties that are common to both polytechnics were selected. The faculties selected are Business Studies, Engineering, Environmental Technology and Science. In the four selected faculties, the total number of students is seven thousand, six hundred and ten (7610). Owing to s large number of students in the selected faculties, the second stage of sampling was to select sample size. A sampling fraction of 5% was drawn from the total number of students in each of the selected faculties to ensure a representative sample, this now gave a sample size of three hundred and eighty-one (381) students as shown in Table 2. At the third stage, in order to ensure equitable distribution across the levels (ND1, NDII, HND1, HNDII), the sample size was divided by four (4) based on equal allocation method, hence, all the levels were fairly represented. The 5% sampling fraction is considered appropriate for the large population of the present study based on Nwanna (1981) who reported that when a total population runs to few hundreds, make use of 40%, use 20% when the population is in several hundreds, if the population is in few thousands use 10%, and when population runs to several thousands, sample 5%. That is, 5/100 x 7610/1 = 380.5; Approximately = 381.

The questionnaire was the main instrument used for data collection and was titled Electronic Resources Usage Questionnaire (ERUQ). The questionnaire was divided into four (4) sections with a focus on the variables of the study. The sections are: A, B, C and D.

• ㆍSection A elicited information on background of the respondents. It consisted six (6) items such as name of the institution, gender, age, faculty, department, and level of the respondents. It contains open and close ended questions.
• ㆍSection B elicited information from polytechnic students on the purpose of use of the e-resources. It contained ten (10) self-report inventory items with four-point Likert scale with ranked options: Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree and Strongly Disagree.
• ㆍSection C elicited information from polytechnic students on the frequency of use of the e-resources. It contained ten (10) self-developed items with five-point Likert scale with ranked options: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Occasionally, and Never used.
• ㆍSection D elicited information from polytechnic students on the challenges faced by students on the use of e-resources. It contained eight (8) self-report inventory items with four-point Likert scale with ranked options: Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree and Strongly Disagree.

To ensure the content validity of the instrument. A copy of the instrument was given to experts in the field of librarianship and Information Studies for their input before the final production of the instrument. Also, the reliability of the questionnaire was conducted through a pre-test. Thirty copies of the questionnaire were administered to students in Ibadan City Polytechnic, Ibadan, Oyo State which is not part of the actual study sample. The Cronbach-alpha method was used to determine the reliability coefficient of the instrument. The coefficient alpha of the scales for each of the section (B, C and D) on the questionnaire was measured. The details of the results obtained on the sections are as follows; (α=.830) for the frequency of use of e-resources by the students, (α=.850) for the purpose of use of e-resources by the students, and (α=.802) for challenges to the use of e-resources.

The questionnaire was administered to the respondents by the researcher in each of the two polytechnics. The entire process of data collection lasted for a period of three months (March-May, 2021). This allowed for early responses, easy and immediate returns and an opportunity to clarify doubt if any. A total of three hundred and eighty-one (381) copies of the questionnaire were distributed among the students in the selected faculties of the selected polytechnics in South-West, Nigeria.

Permission was obtained from the heads of the departments of the selected polytechnics by the researcher before the distribution of questionnaire. A letter to the respondents, introducing the survey and the researcher, describing the reasons for the survey, and soliciting their help in promptly filling and returning the questionnaire, along with the promise of anonymity of the respondents and confidentiality of the results, was the content of questionnaire cover page.

Data were coded using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and was analyzed with the use of descriptive and inferential statistics. Research questions were analyzed using percentage counts and frequency tables.

A total of 381 copies of the questionnaire were administered to the students in both Polytechnics. However, 306 copies were returned and found useful for analysis giving a response rate of 80%. Bryman (2012) posited that in research, 60% response rate for a survey is considered suitable. Hence, the response rate attained for this study was acceptable.

Table 3 presented results on the demographic profile of the respondents and findings showed that most of the students 78(54.9%) from Ede and 97(59.1%) from Ibadan were males, while (45.1%) from Ede and (40.9%) from Ibadan were female. Results also revealed that the majority of the respondents from both Polytechnics 57(40.1%) and 47(28.7%) were in HND II, while the least 4(2.8%) from Ede were in HNDI and 36 (22%) from Ibadan were in ND1. Results further showed that the majority of the students 65(45.8%) and 57(35.0%) from both Polytechnics were from faculty of Science, while the least of them 13(9.2%) and 24(14.6%) were from the faculty of Engineering.

The first research question sought to examine the purpose of use of the e-resources by the students in both Polytechnics in South-West, Nigeria. The findings are presented in Table 4. Table 4 showed that the prominent purposes as identified by the large proportion of the students from both polytechnics were research with a mean score of (mean=3.14) and (mean=3.31), knowledge update (mean=3.11) and (mean=3.14) and class assignments (mean=3.01) and (mean=3.18), while the least of the students acknowledged that they used the e-resources for searching for scholarship opportunities with mean score of (mean=2.43) and (mean=2.71) respectively. This implies that the majority of the students from the both polytechnics used the e-resources mainly for research activities, assignment completion as well as update their knowledge. It may also be that using the e-resources for aforementioned activities will lead to higher academic performance of the students.

The second research question sought to investigate the frequency of use of the e-resources by the students in both Polytechnics in South-West, Nigeria. Table 5 below depicted the results. Table 5 revealed that the majority of the students 71(50.0%) and 85 (53.7%) from both polytechnics used online search engines as well as 61 (43.0%) and 79 (48.2%) used computers and internet facilities on daily basis. While the least 19(13.4%) and 22(13.4%) from both polytechnics noted that they never used online encyclopedia at all. In addition, most of the students from Ede reported that they used E-books 50(35%), E-journals 43(30.3%) and CD ROM databases 41(28.9%) occasionally, while students from Ibadan noted that 63(38.4%) and 56(34.1%) used CD ROM databases and E-databases occasionally. Thus, it could be deduced that the e-resources that were used daily by most of the respondents in both polytechnics were online the search engines and computers and internet facilities. Also, it could be inferred that students from both polytechnics use online search engine, computer and the internet to retrieve relevant information needed for their academic activities.

Research question three sought to examine the challenges encountered in the use of e-resources by students in both Polytechnics in South-West, Nigeria. Table 6 below captured the findings. Table 6 shows that both polytechnics students were faced with similar challenges to the use of e-resources as more than half of them (mean=3.18) and (mean=3.27) from both polytechnics reported that epileptic power supply were the major hiccups faced in the use of e-resources. Other noted challenges from both polytechnics were poor internet connections, lack of relevant and updated information as well as lack of personal computer, while students from both institutions disagreed with challenges such as lack of IT skills 81(57%) and information gathered are too advanced 53(32.3%). Thus, the prominent challenges that were noticed among the students from both polytechnics were epileptic power supply, poor internet connectivity and lack of personal computers. This may lead to non-use of the resources and may affect their academic performance.