INFORMATION SEEKING AND USE FOR EDUCATIONAL STRESS AND COPING TACTICS AMONG UNDERGRADUATE LEARNERS OF AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA

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INFORMATION SEEKING AND USE FOR EDUCATIONAL STRESS AND COPING TACTICS AMONG UNDERGRADUATE LEARNERS OF AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA  

ABSTRACT

This study focused on information seeking and use for academic stress and coping strategies  among undergraduate students of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. In order to achieve this objective, Four (4) research questions and three (3) null hypotheses were formulated. The research sought to find out thecauses of academic stress in the information seeking among undergraduate students, coping strategies use by undergraduate students in managing the causes of academic stress , types of information sources that are utilized by the undergraduate students, and the information seeking behaviour that the  undergraduate students exhibit when coping with academic stress. The research design adopted was cross sectional survey, quantitative method was used. The population of the study comprised the undergraduate students in ABU, Zaria from 2014/2015 session totaling 33,342. Due to the large population of study, proportionate random sampling technique was employed to select the sample. Four Faculties were selected randomly and 5% of the respondents from the four selected Faculties arriving at 321. Structured questionnaire containing closed-ended questions was administered to 321 undergraduate students and 301 (93.7%) copies of the questionnaire were returned. The data collected from the research questions were presented and analyzed using both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Frequency distribution tables, percentages, mean, and standard deviation were used for descriptive statistics while Person Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) was used to test Hypotheses. It was discovered that academic workload was one of the major causes of academic stress, relaxation was the major coping strategy used by them, online resources from the internet was the type of sources of information utilized among undergraduate students, the information seeking behaviour used by the undergraduate students was browsing the information from the internet. It was concluded that academic stress has effect on information seeking among undergraduate students in A.B.U Zaria that comes to seek for information in the libraries. The study recommended amongst others that the undergraduate students should be encouraged to make use of the counseling services at the University in order to help them with the academic workload which they find more stressful and they should use other stress coping strategies such as seeking professional support.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

             

1.1    Background to the Study

Information seeking according to Kingrey, (2002) means different things in different contexts. In the simplest terms, information seeking involves the search, retrieval, recognition, and application of meaningful content. This search may be explicit or implicit, the retrieval may be the result of specific strategies or serendipity, the resulting information may be embraced or rejected, the entire experience may be carried through to a logical conclusion or aborted in midstream, and there may be a million other potential results.In another dimension, IkojaOdongo and Ocholla (2004) described information seeking as a process that requires an information seekers, or what might be called „‟personal information structures‟ „such as a person‟s cognitive abilities, his or her knowledge, skills in relation to the problem or task domain, knowledge and skills specific to a system and knowledge and skills regarding information seeking.

Information plays a significant role in our professional and personal lives. Undergraduate     students need information to study properly in their academic pursuit. They need  to seek  right and update information for their academic and research work. Seeking for  information  also involve how the information can be used by the seeker.  According to Savolainen  (2009), stated that, the use of information is a phenomenon which appears everywhere in the contexts of everyday life or, in fact, of all life. He also, sees information use as how people approach sources of information and adopt information available in them.

Stress in the modern world is unavoidable, adults, teenagers and even children experience it in different ways. Stress has become an important topic in academic circle as well as in the society, just enough stress can retard from actualizing or overcoming a challenge and can have debilitating effects on good health, contributing to and agitating many problems including heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, depression and sleep disorder (Ellis, 2008).

Academic stress is the product of a combination of academic related demands that exceed the adaptive resources available to an individual (Wilks, 2008). Academic stress is an unpleasant psychological situations that occur due to the educational expectations from parents, teachers, peers and family members, pressure of parents for academic achievement, present educational and examination system, burden of Homework among others. Praubu, (2015) stated that academic stress is the anxiety and stress that comes from schooling and education. There is often a lot of pressure that comes along with pursuing a degree and one's education. There is studying, assignments, tests, among others. Academic stress is especially hard on students who are often living away from home for the first time.The experience of stress among undergraduate students is considered normal but “if stress is severe and prolonged, it can reduce academic performance; interfere with a student‟s ability to participate in and contribute to campus life; and increase the likelihood of substance abuse and other potentially damaging behaviors” (Richlin-Klonsky and Hoe, 2003). Many scholars in the field of behavioural science have carried out extensive research on stress and its outcomes and concluded that the topic needed more attention (Baker 1994, Rees and Redfern, 2000; Ellision 2004).

The student of Ahmadu Bello University, Zariacomes from diverse ethnic, religious and social background. These students possess certain degree of liberality and freedom to associate with one another politically, academically and socially. Which when not moderated lead into academic stress. Stress is one of the serious issues that affect university student‟s life negatively and also reflected in students‟ social, academic, and mental health. This opinion was  supported by Shepard; Al‟Absi; Whitsett; Passey and Lovallo (2000) who reported that stress produces physiological illnesses, and considered to numerous causes of illnesses.

In the library context, students do come to the library with their academic stress such as examination phobia, financial problem, too much of assignment amongst others. These stresses are believed to have effect on library user‟s concentration during information seeking. This is because for a library user to seek for the right information in order to solve his or her problem, that user needs a mind that is calm and free of worry for him or her to concentrate in his or her information seeking in the library. It is believed thatpart of the duties of librarians is to provide information, mentor, guide and counsel information seekers so as to get insight on information to solve their problems and to make sure that their minds are calm and having little worries. Stress occurs when individuals are confronted with situations that they perceive as overwhelming and cannot cope with. However, it may be that some students used some coping strategies to enable them reduce their academic stress.

Coping strategies are the reactions and behaviours one adopts to deal with difficult situation. Coping strategies come in many forms. Some are helpful and others are hurtful ((Hubpages Health, 2014).

 

1.2    Statement of the Problem

On a daily basis, people deal with stressful events in both their personal and work environments including Universities. Being a freshman can make it even more difficult to handle stress as an undergraduate (Pfeiffer 2012).Clearly, unresolved stress is a problem in Nigeria, and students are not exempted from many of the stressors that the general publicface during their academic pursuit.

The library as a learning and research environment is there to assist students but it suffers neglect by undergraduate students who are supposed to explore and utilize the facilities subscribed and housed for their use. The library users need a calm mindwithout worry at all for them to concentrate in their information seeking. But unfortunately, observation coupled with informal interview with some of the students revealed that students in some Faculties of Ahmadu

Bello University Zaria come to their faculty and departmental libraries with some kinds of stress. Could it be that the stress was related to worries over academic workload, examination phobia, financial problems, among other?  This condition as reported by Pfeiffer (2012) can interfere with a student‟s preparation, concentration, and academic performance. This prompted the researcher to carry out this study focusing on information seeking and use for academic stress and coping strategies among undergraduate students of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

 

 1.3.      Research Questions

This study was guided by the following questions:

  1. What are       the       causes of         academic         stressin            the       information       seeking

amongundergraduate students in A.B.U Zaria?

  1. What are the coping strategies use by undergraduate students in managing the causes of academic stress in A.B.U Zaria?
  2. What types of informationsources are utilized by undergraduate students for coping with stress in A.B.U Zaria.?
  3. What information seeking behaviour do undergraduate students exhibit when coping with academic stress in A.B.U Zaria?

 

 

1.4     Research Hypotheses

The following research hypotheses were tested:

  1. HO1: There is no significance relationship between causes of academic stress and information seeking among undergraduate students in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
  2. HO2: There is no significance relationship between coping strategies and cause of academic stress among undergraduate students in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
  3. HO3: There is no significance relationship between information seeking behaviour and coping strategies among undergraduate students in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

 

1.5       Objectives of the Study

The objectives of this study are to:

  1. To determine the causes of academic stress in the information seeking among undergraduate students in A.B.U Zaria.
  2. Find out the coping strategies use by undergraduate students in managing the causes of academic stress in A.B.U Zaria.
  3. To identify the types of sources of information utilized by undergraduate students for coping with stress in A.B.U Zaria.
  4. Find out the information seeking behaviour that undergraduate students exhibit when coping with academic stress in A.B.U Zaria.

 

 

 

1.6       Significance of the Study

The significance of the study is based on its practical and theoretical contribution to the students, lecturers,and management of the university saddled with the responsibilities of student affairs and finally to librarians who facilitate teaching, learning and research. The practical implication is that the findings of this study will be useful to students on how to cope with stress in time of searching for information for their academic work.

The study will be of important to the lecturers in the University. This is because they are expected to use the recommendations of the study to encourage students on what to do to enable them reduce their stress.The study will be of help to students on how to cope with academic stress during information seeking.The findings will help librarians on how to tailor information to the specific needs of their clients in libraries to help them reduce stress.

Finally, the results of this study will assist universities and other higher institutions in identifying aspects of their programes that are likely to be stressful, and help them to cushion stress of their students.

 

1.7.      Scopeof the Study

This study was conducted in Ahmadu Bello University Zaria and focusedonly on the undergraduate students.Academic stress and coping strategies for informationseeking are the content area. The researcher used monitoring and blunting theory proposed by Miller, S.M (1980). But the theory was only used to explain the stress faced by the students as they come to the library. More so, only one of the two constructs of the theory that is informationseeking is most appropriate in explaining the stress as the major issue of this research. So, the researcher only concentrated on this construct and was explained fully in chapter two.

 

1.8.      Limitation of the study

This study used only a small sample of students, drawn from Ahmadu Bello University

Zaria. This finding cannot be generalized for students in other University degree programs.

Another limitation was only undergraduate students were used which postgraduate students were not included. And also, lack of enough literature, lack of access to my respondents, and difficulty in getting the sample technique.

 

1.9.      Operational Definition of Terms

The following terms are defined in the context in which they have been used in the study: Academic Stress:This is the stress that comes from schooling and education.

Coping Strategies: This refer to the specific efforts, both behavioral and psychological, that people employ to master, tolerate, reduce, or minimize stressful events.

Information Seeking: The process or activity of attempting to obtain information in both human and technological contexts.

Information source:This refers to a person, thing, or place from which information comes, arises, or is obtained.

Information Use:This refersto how people approach sources of information and adopt

information available in them.    

 

 

 

References

 

 

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Ellison, K. W. (2004). Stress and the Police Officer. 2ndEd., Charles C. Thomas Publishers,                Springfield, IL, 71-86.

 

Ellis, M.(2008). How Stress affects Academic Performance. Retrieved on 20th/01/2015 from                   http://www.healthnews.com/en/news/How-Stress-Affects-Academic-performance/

 

Hubpages Health (2014). A list of Coping Skills for Anger, Anxiety  and Depression.                  Retrieved on 20th/01/2015 from http://www.blakeflannery.hubpages.com.

 

Ikoja-Odogo, R & Ocholla, D.N. (2004).Information-seeking Behaviour of the Informal Sector  Entrepreneurs: The Uganda Experience. Libri 54, pp. 54-66.

 

Kingrey, K. Patricia (2002) Concepts of Information Seeking and their Presence in the Practical  Library Literature. Library Philosophy and Practice vol.4, No 2. Retrieved 11th/11/2014  from http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/-mboln/kingrey.html.

 

Miller, S.M (1980). When is a Llittle Information a Dangerous Thing? Coping with Stressful                events by monitoring versus blunting. In S. Levine & H. Ursing(Eds), coping and health.  Newyork: plenum.

 

Miller, S.M (1987). Monitoring and Blunting: Validation of a Questionnaire to Assess Styles of  Information Seeking under Threat. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52 (2), 345 – 353.

 

Pfeiffer, D. (2012) Academic and Environmental Stress among Undergraduate College Students:  A Literature            review.            Retrieved         on        5th/9/2014        from

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INFORMATION SEEKING AND USE FOR EDUCATIONAL STRESS AND COPING TACTICS AMONG UNDERGRADUATE LEARNERS OF AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA  

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