Information Literacy Competencies of Undergraduate Students in a Nigerian Specialized University

Abstract

The study examined the information literacy competencies of undergraduate
students in the Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun
(FUPRE), Nigeria. A descriptive survey research design was adopted for the
study. FUPRE has a total of 2246 undergraduate students from the two
colleges (Science and Technology). Simple random sampling and purposive
sampling were used to select 10% of the population. The sample size used for
the study is Two Hundred and Twenty-Five (225) undergraduate students.
The instrument used for eliciting data from the respondents was a structured
questionnaire. The data collected via the questionnaire were analysed using
the descriptive statistics method. The findings revealed that the
undergraduate students of FUPRE are highly information literate. The study
has shown that the challenges in accessing information are no/ poor internet
access, erratic power supply, and the absence of relevant academic databases,
among others. The findings also revealed several strategies that can be
deployed to improve the information literacy competencies of the
undergraduate students. The study recommends amongst others that
management should ensure power is uninterrupted in FUPRE to enable
students charge their devices to browse the internet and also swift internet
access should be made available within the FUPRE community to boost
undergraduates’ access to information.