Use of multidimensional library anxiety scale on education and psychology students in Iran.
Erfanmanesh, Mohammadamin
Introduction
Scientific and educational environments may give students the
experience of an anxiety called "academic anxiety," which may
be different for different people. The library is one of frequently
named sources of anxiety in students.
Most users making use of library services encounter different
levels of undesirable feelings of fear, tension, and anxiety. Coming
across the library building, the presence of modern technology in
contemporary libraries, the enormous bulk of information resources, lack
of necessary skills for library research as well as the difficulties to
interact with librarians can bring out unwillingness to use libraries
(Jiao and Onwuegbuzie, 1997). Such negative feelings are known as
"library anxiety." Library anxiety can be defined as "the
fear and negative feelings when using library, making ready for use and
even when thinking about use of library" (Mellon, 1986). In other
words, library anxiety consists of any negative emotional symptoms such
as fear, worry, uncertainty, perceiving lack of ability and efficiency,
sense of loneliness, consternation, and etc. This phenomenon is a common
thing among library users and has been the subject of a variety of
studies.
Anxiety has always been known as a psychological barrier for
library users, has caused different cognitive, emotional, and behavioral
effects in users, and has had an impact on their performance. Library
anxiety will lead users, when presenting at the library, to not feeling
ease and comfort and consequently leaving the library before ending
their research or feeling less interest in making use of library
(Higgins 2001). Jiao and Onwuegbuzie state that students with higher
library anxiety lose their interest in use of the library 2.5 times more
than other students (Clivland 2004). They also argue that 95% of
students, due to library anxiety, delay doing their library research.
Such anxiety can have a negative affect on the quantity and quality of
users' library research (Van Kampen, 2003).
Although users of all kinds of libraries may encounter library
anxiety, it has been studied more in scientific settings and among
academic library users (Jiao and Onwuegbuzie, 1998). This study
investigates aspects of library anxiety among college and university
students of School of Education and Psychology, Shiraz University.
Literature Review
Library anxiety has been the target of researches in a number of
countries, but only a few studies have been done in Iran. A brief review
of the most remarkable researches on library anxiety among the students
of higher education levels will be offered. Jiao and Onwuegbuzie are key
researchers on the matter, and much of the research reviewed here refers
to them.
Match and Bruex (1995) studied college and university students to
investigate library anxiety and to know whether it differs from the
in-situation anxiety commonly experienced by every one at special
situations or not. Their findings approved the difference between
library anxiety and in-situation anxiety. They also reported the
negative correlation between the self-confidence of students and their
anxiety.
Onwuegbuzie (1997) conducted a study to investigate the relation
between library anxiety and the quality of research projects done by
college and university students. He concluded that writing research
projects is more difficult for students with higher rates of library
anxiety.
Jiao and Onwuegbuzie (1997) assessed the correlation between
individual attributes of college and university students and their sense
of library anxiety. It was revealed that the students with the highest
level of library anxiety have the following attributes: male, young
(18-29 years old), first or second semester student, with a first
language other than English.
Investigating the relationship between the learning habits of
college and university students and library anxiety, Jiao and
Onwuegbuzie (1998) observ that of the 20 items under study, 13 have a
relationship with at least one factor of the five-dimension library
anxiety factors (Bostic Scale of Library Anxiety). Environmental
temperature and noises, time of study, and the amount of movement while
learning were some of the habits showing significant correlation with
library anxiety.
Assessment of the relationship between perfectionism and library
anxiety of college and university students was another study done by
Jiao and Onwuegbuzie (1998) through which they found a significant
correlation between perfectionism and library anxiety in students.
Jiao and Onwuegbuzie (1999) conducted another project investigating
the relation between library anxiety and the personal perceptions of
college and university students and concluded that four aspects out of
the seven-dimensions of personal perception are related to two of the
stress-generating factors consisting of emotional problems and lack of
comfort in the library. Consequently, the students with negative
self-perceptions are more encountered with library anxiety than other.
Bin Omran (2001) studied the students of Petersburg University to
investigate the relation between library anxiety and Internet anxiety.
He reported the presence of different levels of library and Internet
anxieties in students and found significant correlation between the two
kinds of anxieties.
Jiao and Onwuegbuzie (2001) investigated the relationship between
study habits of M.A. students such as notetaking skills and time
management with library anxiety. Students with lower levels of study
skills experience more library anxiety.
Jiao and Onwuegbuzie (2002) studied the relationship between social
dependence and library anxiety in college and university students and
found that those students with a better collective attitude will
encounter lower library anxiety. These researchers believe that
improving collaborative and collective interests in students and
encouraging them in group activities can be effective in reducing
library anxiety.
Jiao and Onwuegbuzie (2004) investigated the relation between M.A.
students' attitude towards computers and the extent of library
anxiety. This research found a significant correlation between negative
attitudes towards computers and their library anxiety.
Jiao and Onwuegbuzie (2004) investigated the relation between the
gender of college and university students and their library anxiety and
found that gender can also affect library anxiety. These same
researchers (Jiao and Onwuegbuzie 2006) found that gender is a predictor
of library anxiety.
Kovun, Onwuegbuzie, and Alexander (2007) assessed the relationship
between critical thinking and library anxiety in college and university
students. The results of this study show that students with low critical
thinking will experience more sense of library anxiety. They stated that
teaching critical thinking could result in reducing library anxiety in
students.
Jiao and Onwuegbuzie (2008) after investigating the relationship
between library anxiety in Ph.D. students of Educational Sciences and
their errors in creating citations found a significant correlation
between these two variables. They stated that students with more library
anxiety will make more mistakes in citations on their thesis.
Research Objectives
This study aims to investigate different aspects of library anxiety
among M.A. students of Education and Psychology in Shiraz University. To
this end, the study follows undergoing sub-objectives:
1. Assessment of the extent of library anxiety in students
2. Investigating library anxiety among all students of different
majors of the college
3. Investigation of library anxiety based on gender
4. Assessment of the library anxiety in students in different
semesters
5. To compare the anxieties of students in eight aspects: access to
resources, access to services, information search process, mechanical
equipments, use of library, library literacy, staff, and the library
building.
Research Questions
1. What is the extent of library anxiety among the M.A. students of
the School of Education and Psychology?
2. Is there any significant correlation between library anxieties
of the students of different majors?
3. Is there any significant correlation between library anxieties
of male and female students?
4. Is there any significant correlation between library anxieties
of students at different educational semesters?
5. Which of the eight aspects (access to resources, access to
services, information search process, mechanical equipments, use of
library, library literacy, staff, and library building) results in the
highest mean of anxiety?
Methodology
This research uses a survey, and the population consists of the
M.A. students of School of Education and Psychology, Shiraz University.
According to the statistics issued by the college, the number of
students in those majors was more than 180 during 2009-2010. One hundred
twenty-three students were selected based on the Kerjesi and Morgan
number of sample table. The classified random sampling method was used
to disseminate questionnaires among the students. The tool for data
collection is the questionnaire applied by Van Kampen (2003). The
questionnaire consisted of 57 statements scored between 1-5 (complete
agreement, agreement, no comment, disagreement, and complete
disagreement). The statements are described in detail through the
following table.
In order to assess the validity of the questionnaire, the factor
analysis method was used in which the correlation coefficient of the
statements of each sub-scale was calculated with its total score. The
results showed high validity of the questionnaire statements. Questions
numbered 8 (the sub-scale of access to resources), 2 (subscale of use of
library), 1 (sub-scale of library literary), 5 & 6 (sub-scale of
library building) respectively with 0.16, 0.11, 0.03, 0.05, and 0.06
showed low correlation with the total score of the sub-scale and
therefore were omitted from the collection of questions related to the
scale of library anxiety.
The test-retest method was used to calculate the external
reliability of the library anxiety scale. After the first group of
questionnaires was disseminated among 30 numbers of the students, the
questionnaire was redelivered, two weeks later, to these 30 students.
The results of external reliability represent the high external
reliability for library anxiety scale. In addition to descriptive
statistics, perceptive statistics (independent T-tests, ANOVA test,
Repeated measures ANOVA) was used for data analysis. The 16 version of
SPSS software did the tests and analysis.
Analysis of Findings
Question 1: How is the extent of library anxiety among the M.A.
students of the School of Education and Psychology?
Mean and standard deviation of the scale were calculated to
identify the extent of library anxiety among M.A. students. The results
show that 61% of M.A. students of the college convey an average level of
library anxiety, 21% experience library anxiety lower than the average
level and 18% suffer from the library anxiety more than the average
degree (Table 2).
Furthermore, the extent of library anxiety in students was
calculated at different aspects of anxiety on the basis of which most of
students experience an average level of anxiety at all aspects (Table
3).
Question 2: Is there any significant correlations between library
anxieties of the students of different majors?
In order to provide an answer to question 2, the ANOVA test was
used. The result of ANOVA indicated that there is a significant
correlation in all aspects of the library anxiety among the extent of
anxieties in students of different majors (Sig.=0.001). Making a
comparison on the mean of library anxiety of students of all majors
showed that the students of library and Information Sciences are
suffering from the lowest extent of library anxiety in most of aspects.
The students of Educational Psychology did also show the lowest sense of
anxiety at three aspects of access to resources (Mean=2.21), access to
services (Mean=2.59) and library building (Mean=2). The students of
Special Education and Physical Education showed the highest level of
anxiety in most of aspects.
Generally, the students of Special Education suffer from the
highest level of library anxiety. The students of Physical Education and
Educational Administration are in second and third place. The lowest
extent of library anxiety is felt by students of library and information
Sciences (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Level of library anxiety among students in different
fields
The significant difference between each major and all other majors
was measured when investigating anxiety among students of all majors.
The results showed no significant difference between the library anxiety
of Library and Information Sciences students and that of the students of
Educational Psychology (Sig.=1), Foundations of Education (Sig.=0.79),
and Clinical Psychology (Sig.=0.06); but there was a significant
difference between the anxiety of library and information Sciences
students and that of the students of Special Education (Sig.=0.001),
Physical Education (Sig.=0.001), and Educational Administration
(Sig.=0.007). There is also a significant difference between the anxiety
of Educational Administration students and the students of Educational
Psychology (Sig.=0.004) and Library and Information Sciences
(Sig.=0.007). The extent of library anxiety in Special Education
students displayed a significant difference with the anxiety of the
students of Library and Information Sciences (Sig.=0.001), and
Educational Psychology (Sig.=0.001) and it did not present any
significant difference with other majors available at the college. The
amount of anxiety in Educational Psychology students demonstrates a
significant difference with that of the students of Physical Education
(Sig.=0.001) and Clinical Psychology (Sig.=0.03). There was no
significant difference between the anxiety of Foundations of
Education's students and the students of other majors.
Question 3: Is there any significant correlations between library
anxieties of male and female students?
T-tests showed that male students, in general, encounter higher
levels of anxiety than females (Table 4). Comparing the level of anxiety
in both groups at different aspects of library anxiety also demonstrates
no significant correlation between males' and females' anxiety
through the three dimensions of access to resources (Sig.=0.08), library
literacy (Sig.=0.35) and library building (Sig.=0.53).
Question 4: Is there any significant correlations between library
anxieties of students at different educational semesters?
The results of ANOVA test represent a significant correlation
between the extents of anxiety in the college and university students at
different semesters. Comparing the mean of anxiety in the students of
different education semesters shows that the students of the second
semester have experienced most amount of library anxiety. The students
of 3rd semester have shown the lowest anxiety among all students (Table
5).
Question 5: At which of the 8 aspects of access to resources,
access to services, information search process, mechanical equipments,
use of library, library literacy, staff, and library building do the
students show the highest mean of anxiety?
Making a comparison amongst the mean of different aspects of
anxiety illustrates that the anxiety of access to servicers comes to the
highest mean. After that, the anxieties of library literacy and access
to resources respectively show the highest levels of mean scores. Among
the investigated aspects, library building gives the lowest amount of
anxiety. The results of repeated measures ANOVA showed a significant
difference among the means of different aspects of library anxiety
(significant level = 0.001) (Table 6).
Discussion, Conclusion, and Suggestions
This study investigates the library anxiety in the M.A. students of
Education and Psychology school, Shiraz University. The findings show
the presence of library anxiety in most students, to the extent that 79%
encounter an average to high level. As these students need to meet
library and its services for subject selection, information acquisition,
literature review needed for thesis and doing homework, library anxiety
could negatively affect the educational performance of the students.
Since the factors such as access to services, library literacy, and
access to resources trace the most effects on library anxiety in
students, putting emphasis on teaching library resources and services,
library literacy skills, and information literacy to college and
university students could likely decrease sense of library anxiety in
such students. Mohondro (1999) and Battle (2004) have also emphasized
the effectiveness of teaching library skills on descending library
anxiety. As the students of first and second semesters at M.A. level
have experienced the most range of library anxiety, providing teaching
careers on necessary skills becomes to a high amount of importance to
them. Although these students may have experienced use of academic
library at Bachelor level, they have never perceived the necessity to
use library resources and services until now. Such a conclusion has also
been reported by previous research (Jiao and Onwuegbuzie, 1997; Bin
Omran, 2001; Kuhreman, 2002).
Use of mechanical equipment in libraries is also another
stress-generating factor considering in this study which it was reported
to cause the library anxiety extended to the more than average level in
13% of students. Lately increase in use of computer, printer, scanner,
and other day life mechanical equipments seems contribute to getting
familiarity and appropriate skills in students and decrease the anxiety
generated from this perspective. Designing his scale of library anxiety,
Bostic (1992) considered interaction with computer in libraries as one
of the most important stress-generating factors.
Anxiety about the library building has the lowest mean among the
eight investigated factors, but providing facilities such as transfer
services, places to relax and eat, and considering environmental factors
such as color, light, temperature, appropriate use of pictures, maps,
signs, and instructions suggested in previous research, could help
handle the matter (Bin Omran, 2001; Van Kampen, 2003).
Interaction with library staff was not a significant source of
anxiety. Such a result differs from the findings of most previous
studies representing interaction between user and librarians as one of
the most remarkable stress-generating factors (Jiao and Onwuegbuzie,
1997; Cliveland, 2004).
In general, being familiar with the concept of library anxiety and
the attributes of users, academic librarians need to employ an
appropriate procedure to play a positive role in reducing such anxieties
by going to the user's assistance. Mellon (1986) argues that being
friendly and treating all users as equals, regardless of gender,
religion, abilities, and other attributes, could help decrease anxiety
in users. Also, trying not to use the specific library terms when
helping users may be useful in increasing self-confidence and decreasing
anxieties.
Investigating the extent of library anxiety in the students of
different majors showed that the students of library and information
sciences suffer from the lowest extent of anxiety; such a result could
be foreseen due to the nature of this major, familiarity of its students
with library, library skills, and high use of library resources and
services. Bin Omran (2001) and Kuhraman (2002) came also to this
conclusion. On the other hand, the students of Special Education and
Physical Education have encountered highest levels of library anxiety
which requires more attention from professors and administrators of the
college and library to provide facilities for descending anxieties of
these students of these two majors.
Comparing library anxiety in male and female students shows a
significant difference in the five aspects of the eight factors in
library anxiety. Male students generally in encountered higher rates of
library anxiety. Previous studies report either equivalent levels of
library anxiety at both groups (Match and Bruex, 1995; Kuhreman, 2002)
or a bit more anxiety in males (Jiao and Onwuegbuzie, 1997 & 1998;
Bin Omran, 2001). The reason for the significant difference revealed in
this study needs more research to understand
Since most of the students under this study were not familiar with
the concept of library anxiety, making users aware of the concept of
this common phenomenon and its different aspects will end in that users
do not find themselves left behind and alone through such a feeling.
Regarding this point, Kuhran (2002) states that providing students with
pamphlets and broachers on library anxiety could be effective to handle
such scientific anxieties.
Along with the efforts made from librarians in acquisition,
organization, and dissemination of information and resources,
investigating emotional and psychological barriers in use of library,
access to information resources, and carrying out library researches
could also be useful in better provision of services and making more
effective use of libraries by users. Since little research on library
anxiety in Iran has been conducted, planning for more studies to assess
the level and extent of library anxiety in users in view of their
personality attributes, and environmental properties of libraries,
identifying the main causes of such a feeling and making efforts to
overcome it could be a useful pace taken for making effective use of
library resources and services by users in Iran.
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Mohammadamin Erfanmanesh
Ph.D. Student of Library & Information Science
University of Malaya
Table 1. Sub-scales and related
questions of LA questionare
Scale Sub-scales Questions
Access to Resources 1-8
Access to Services 9-13
Information Search Process 14-23
Library Anxiety Mechanical Equipments 24-31
Use of Library 32-39
Library Literacy 40-45
Staff 46-51
Library Building 52-57
Table 2. The level of library
anxiety among students
Level of anxiety Indices Value Lower than Average More
Scale the average than the
average
Library M 21.82
21% 61% 18%
Anxiety SD 4.04
Table 3. The level of library anxiety among students
Level of Indices Value Lower Average More
anxiety than the than the
Scale average average
Access to M 2.83
Resources 17.9% 65.1% 17%
SD 0.83
Access to M 3.04
Services 24.4% 64.2% 11.4%
SD 0.63
Information M 2.63
Search Process 11.4% 75.6% 13%
SD 0.53
Mechanical M 2.57
Equipments 24.4% 62.6% 13%
SD 0.7
Use of M 2.67
Library 11.4% 74% 14.6%
SD 0.64
Library M 2.95
Literacy 17% 68% 15%
SD 0.81
Staff M 2.54
19% 68% 13%
SD 0.66
M 2.55
Library Building 11.5% 78.5% 10%
SD 0.76
Table 4. The results of T-test related to comparing males and females
Sub-scale Groups .N Mean SD Df T value .Sig
Library Male 79 21.1 3.98
Anxiety 121 2.71- 0.008
Female 44 23.11 3.85
Table 5. The average of library anxiety among students
in different semesters
Sub-scale Semesters .N Mean SD
Library Anxiety First 52 22.06 4.04
Second 41 23.63 3.35
Third 30 18.91 3.3
Table 6. The results of repeated measures ANOVA test
Sub-scales .N Mean Sum of df [sup.2]M F Sig.
Squares value
Access to 123 3.04
Resources
Access to 123 2.95
Services
Information 123 2.83
Search Process
Mechanical 123 2.67
Equipments 28.1 7 4.01 18.58 0.001
Use of Library 123 2.63
Library 123 2.57
Literacy
Staff 123 2.54
Library 123 2.55
Building
