Factors influencing undergraduate library usage at Makerere University: a case of School of Statistics and Planning

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to establish the “factors influencing undergraduate library usage at Makerere University: a case of School of Statistics and Planning”. The study examined how student age, gender, year of study, academic performance and proximity to the university affects library usage by undergraduates. The study uses primary data on student library usage obtained using a structured questionnaire issued to a sample of 81 students from the School of Statistics and Planning, Makerere University. Stata 15.0 was used to clean, transform, and analyze the collected data. A descriptive analysis of the data was made using distribution tables and graphs so as to provide a better understanding of the distribution of respondents with respect to the specified variables. Furthermore, the chi-square test for independence was used to test the research hypotheses specified by the study at a 5% level of significance. The results from the study show that factors like age, gender, proximity to the university, year of study and academic performance have no significant relationship with library usage at 5% level of significance. The study recommends that future research by the library management should account for specific library resources other than frequency of library visits as measure of library usage. Additionally, there should be consideration of pre-university factors like high school performance or existence of library in former school.