Awareness and Utilization of Social Media Services for Library Information Sourcing Among Undergraduates in Adeyemi Federal University of Education, Ondo, Nigeria (Published)
The study is on Awareness and utilization of social media service for library information sourcing among Undergraduates in Adeyemi Federal University of Education, Ondo, Nigeria.This study adopted a descriptive survey design. The population comprised all undergraduate students registered at Adeyemi Federal University of Education (AFUED), Ondo. A sample of 100 undergraduate students was drawn using a stratified random sampling technique, stratified by department and level of study. Data were collected using the Awareness and Utilization of Social Media Library Information Sourcing and Delivery Questionnaire (AUSLISDQ), a researcher-designed instrument validated by library science experts. The instrument consisted of four sections aligned with the research questions and scored on a four-point Likert scale: Strongly Agree (SA) = 4, Agree (A) = 3, Disagree (D) = 2, Strongly Disagree (SD) = 1; and for frequency items: Daily = 4, Weekly = 3, Monthly = 2, Never = 1. A mean score of 2.50 and above was adopted as the decision rule for a positive/affirmed response. Descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) were used to answer the research questions, while inferential statistics, independent samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient (PPMC), and Chi-square, were employed to test the four null hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. All data were analysed using SPSS version 26. Only five of the nineteen platforms assessed exceeded the 2.50 frequency threshold: WhatsApp recorded the highest mean by a considerable margin (x̄ = 3.33, SD = 0.88), confirming its dominance as the preferred social media tool for academic information sharing. Facebook ranked second (x̄ = 2.92, SD = 1.06), followed by Wiki (x̄ = 2.81, SD = 1.08), Instagram (x̄ = 2.54, SD = 1.06), and YouTube (x̄ = 2.58, SD = 1.01). All remaining platforms, including LinkedIn (x̄ = 2.40), Twitter/X (x̄ = 2.44), Zoom (x̄ = 1.96), Blogs (x̄ = 1.85), Skype (x̄ = 1.85), TeacherTube (x̄ = 1.68), The strong and consistent affirmation of social media use across all eight academic work categories, with research (x̄ = 3.17) and lecture preparation (x̄ = 3.14) as the leading academic drivers. The breadth of academic purposes for which social media is used suggests that students have organically integrated social media into their academic information ecosystems, a development that provides an opening for libraries to institutionalise and formalise this behaviour through structured social media information services
Keywords: Adeyemi Federal University of Education, Nigeria, Ondo, Undergraduates, Utilization, awareness, library information sourcing, social media services