Digital resources and the reading habits of university students in Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined digital resources (DRs) and the reading habits of university students in Nigeria. This study aims to establish the relationship between DRs and the reading habits of university students in Nigeria. The descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised all university students in Nigeria. An online questionnaire was used to collect data. The questionnaire was validated by two experts in research methodology and educational technology. 412 university students who responded to the questionnaire were used as the sample for the study. The sample size is justified by Fox et al. (2007) and Meyer (1979), who recommended 384 samples from an infinite population range. Cronbach’s alpha was used to establish the reliability of the instrument, which yielded 0.76. Data were analyzed with frequency counts and simple percentages, and statistical product and service solutions version 23 was used to generate the mean and standard deviation while Pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficient was used to test the hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. The findings established that the majority of the university students used DRs daily and the Internet resources were mostly used by the students. The students had positive perceptions of the impacts of DR usage on their reading habits. Lastly, the test of the hypothesis showed that there is a significant relationship between DRs and the reading habits of university students in Nigeria. Based on the findings, the researchers recommended that the university management should continue to provide the Internet services and computer systems so that students can continue to enjoy more access to DRs to enhance their learning.