USERS’ PERCEPTIONS ON THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF UiTM LIBRARIES IN CREATING A LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

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C O N F E R E N C E ON S C I E N T I F I C & S O C I A L R E S E A R C H

Paper number: 1523369

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USERS’ PERCEPTIONS ON THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF UiTM

LIBRARIES IN CREATING A LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Norliya Ahmad Kassim1 and Khasiah Zakaria

2

1Faculty of Information Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, MALAYSIA

2Perpustakaan Tun Abdul Razak 1, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam

[email protected],

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

The aim of the study is to investigate users’ perceptions on the contributions of Universiti Teknologi

MARA (UiTM) Libraries in creating a learning environment. This is measured by the users’

satisfaction level on the services, collection/ information, activities and staff’s attitude. Using

questionnaires as the instrument, respondents were asked to give their opinion on their satisfaction

level on the statements regarding the four main dimensions stated above. The instrument was

distributed to a sample of 650 final year students from Faculty of Information Management, Faculty of

Administrative Science and Public Policy, and Faculty of Law of UiTM in Shah Alam. A total of 534

(82%) respondents returned the questionnaires. The results of the study revealed that the library users

were only quite satisfied with the services, collection/ information, and activities of the library as a

whole. The findings also revealed that users were least satisfied with the attitude of the library staff

compared with other aspects of the library evaluated. Among the four aspects of the library,

respondents were relatively most satisfied with collection/ information (mean score = 3.27), followed

by services to users (mean score = 3.18), library activities (mean score = 3.16) and staff attitude (mean

score = 3.06) in that order. The information produced through this study will be of use to the

improvement of library services and betterment of the library profession, and serve as a contribution to

the body of knowledge in the area of user satisfaction on libraries’ contribution and their services to

users.

Keywords: Users’ perception, library contribution, library services, learning environment, Universiti

Teknologi MARA

1. INTRODUCTION

In a university setting, empowering learning environment ensures high-quality learning. A

contemporary approach to learning claims that learning takes place not only in classroom settings, but

wherever learners have an access to information sources or means and use them for solving problems or

constructing a new meaning (Longworth, 1999; Jonassen & Land, 2000). In the context of this new

learning paradigm, an academic library plays a significant role. The learning environment of a university

depends on the conditions that are classified as competence-related, material-organization, psychological,

sociocultural and study conditions (Juceviciene & Lipinskiene, 2001). Other perspective can be looked

into are the services for users as well as the activities for users such as learning and training.

Satisfying users’ needs in the academic libraries should be the primary objective of libraries and

librarians. Even in academic institutions, user’s needs and expectations vary and every year, new students

come to the university with different needs and expectations. Furthermore, new technologies, databases,

and more innovative systems for accessing information, have made the library more complicated and

challenging for librarians and users alike. The abundance of resources available and the difficulty in being able to evaluate these resources also create problems for users. Finally, the inability to easily

identify the specific use of a library’s services because of the new technologies, and the difficulty to

access information sources can all contribute to user dissatisfaction among academic library users.

Therefore, this study which assessed library’s performance on services infrastructure/place/space,

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collection/information, activities, and attitudes shown by the library staff in creating a learning

environment may contribute to this context.

The main objective of the study is to determine the users’ perceptions on the UiTM Libraries’

contributions in creating a learning environment. The users’ perceptions are measured by their level of

satisfaction on the areas that the UiTM Libraries offer that include the areas of services, infrastructure,

collections, activities, and staff’s attitude shown towards users. The specific objectives of this study are to

identify the satisfaction level of UiTM Libraries’ users regarding the libraries’ services,

infrastructure/place/space, collection/information, activities, and attitudes shown by the library staff in

creating a learning environment. However, this paper has omitted the report on infrastructure/place/space

in order to keep this paper to a considerable length.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Each year new students enter the learning environment with varying library usage and information

gathering skills. Millson-Martula and Menon (1995) state that one element of high quality service is “the

incorporation of users’ personal needs and expectations into the development of programs and service”.

The concept of user satisfaction in the library literature likewise has evolved to include a broader focus on

the users’ perspective of the library. Applegate (1997) defines user “satisfaction… as a personal,

emotional reaction to a library service or product”. Bitner and Hubbert (1994) suggest that it consists of

service encounter satisfaction, “the consumer’s dis/satisfaction with a discrete service encounter,” and

overall service satisfaction, “the consumer’s overall dis/satisfaction with the organization based on all

encounters and experiences with that particular organization”. In addition, a characteristic of service

delivery is the simultaneous nature of production and consumption (Zeithaml & Bitner, 1996). Customers

are usually involved in some (if not all) of the production processes and therefore have an impact on the

outcomes of the service delivery and their satisfaction with it.

Bowen (1986), Mills and Morris (1986), and Kelley, Donnelly and Skinner (1990), have shown that

participation, or the use of customers as “partial employees”, can improve productivity for providers as

well as improving service quality and customer satisfaction. Bateson (1985) note that problems in the

service encounter are often due to conflicts over who is in control of the service interaction, and hence, a

way of increasing control for the customer is to offer alternatives or choices within the service setting,

such as providing on-site or remote access to electronic resources, loan or photocopying of printed

materials, self-service or staff service facilities, silent study or discussion areas, on-site or telephone or

email or postal reference consultation. Service providers must develop mechanisms in order to ensure that

customers provide the required information and effort to facilitate the service encounter and outcome

(Kelley, Donnelly & Skinner, 1990).

Gronroos (1990) proposes that service quality can be divided into two dimensions, namely technical

quality and functional quality. Technical quality represents the outcome of the service, and functional

quality relates to the service process. This study will focus on aspects of functional quality. The functional

quality has a clear direct impact on technical quality and both have an impact on customer satisfaction and

library productivity. The library’s environment can affect students’ perceptions of the manner in which

they believe they can use the library, and therefore modification of the environment, in some cases, should

lead to an increased usage of library resources by students (Watson, 2001). Studies of other literatures also

reveal that although they are related, the concept of “service quality” is different from satisfaction and has

offered an alternative direction to assess library performance. Satisfaction is often a short-term measure

whereas service quality evolves over time and relates to the customer’s developed attitude toward a

service. Within the library literature, reported research has accepted the concept from the gap theory of

service quality, developed by the marketing research team of Parasuraman, Berry, and Zeithaml (1985).

They define service quality in terms of reducing the gap between customers’ expectations for excellent

service and their perceptions of services delivered. In the studies conducted by Coleman, Yi, Blair, and

Chollet (1997), Edwards and Browne (1995), Hernon and Calvert (1996), Nitecki (1996), and White and

Abels (1995), the five-dimensional SERVQUAL model and the twenty-two-item scale proposed by

Parasuraman, Berry, and Zeithaml (1991) are prominent. In the perspective of academic libraries, a

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detailed study by Nitecki (1996) highlighted several problems with the SERVQUAL measures. Hernon

and Calvert (1996) have concluded that “it is not possible to develop a generic instrument applicable to all

libraries in all circumstances”.

3. METHODOLOGY

A survey research method was adopted to address the research questions. The study was distributed to

a sample of 650 final year undergraduate students of the Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) from the

Faculty of Information Management, Faculty of Administrative Science and Public Policy, and Faculty of

Law of UiTM, Shah Alam. The sample is stratified according to the actual student population of each

faculty, but within each faculty, the respondents were selected among the final year students of the

faculties. The libraries at the university are also known as Perpustakaan Tun Abdul Razak (PTAR). The

research instrument in this study is a questionnaire. The response rate was 82% or 534 responses. A

descriptive statistic was used in the analysis of this study. Mean ranking, median, and standard deviation

were performed to analyze the descriptive part of the analysis.

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The distribution of respondents by faculty shows that almost half (49.6%) of the sample is made up of

students from the Faculty of Information Management (IS), followed by those from the Faculty of

Administrative Science and Public Policy (AM) (29.3%), and students from the Faculty of Law (LW)

(21.1%). Regarding the frequency of library visitation, most (33.7%) of the respondents goes to PTAR

library more than once a week, while those who go twice a month make up 20.5 percent of the sample.

Only a few (0.4%) has never been to the library at all. The study also suggests that many of the

respondents visit library for more than one reason. The largest proportion (63.7%) of the respondents goes

to library to browse materials while the smallest proportion (2.1%) of the respondents visits the library to

attend a library program. The reliability tests that were carried out show that the statements used to

measure the level of satisfaction of respondents in the four components are reliable (all the Cronbach’s

Alpha values are >0.9).

4.1 Analysis on User Satisfaction In this report, user satisfaction is examined through four aspects: (1) Services to users; ((2) Collection

and information; (3) Activities; and (4) Staff (attitude). The level of satisfaction for each of the four

dimensions is gauged using a group of statements on a five-point Likert scale of 1 (Very dissatisfied) to 5

(Very satisfied). The number of statements under the four dimensions vary from 4 for Activities to as

many as 19 for Services for Users as shown in Table 1. Collection and Information has 12 while Staff has

seven statements.

Before the analysis proper, reliability tests were performed on each dimension to determine their

internal consistency, hence their reliability. The results show that the values of the Cronbach’s alphas are

all in excess of 0.9, indicating that all dimensions are reliable and can be used for further analysis.

The following subsections present the summary statistics of each item in each of the four dimensions of

satisfaction. These summary statistics are presented to determine the variations of the responses to the

individual items in each dimension.

4.2 Satisfaction on the Quality of Services

Table 1 presents the median, mean and the standard deviation of the scores of the individual statements

for the quality of service dimension. Based on the overall mean of 3.18 and median of 3.24, it can be

concluded that the respondents are divided in their opinion on the quality of services provided by PTAR to

users. The individual measures indicate that the respondents are satisfied with only two aspects of the

services offered by the library system: (1) the opening hours is suitable (median = 4.0; mean = 3.51); and

(2) the library has proper signage (median = 4.0; mean = 3.50).

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On the other hand, they are only quite satisfied with 16 aspects of library services which are generally

perceived to be important. This conclusion is based on the median values of 3.0 and mean values between

3.0 and less than 3.5. In descending order of satisfaction, these are: operating an enquiry/reference service;

performing services right; willingness to help users; readiness to respond to users; attending to users in a

caring manner; providing photocopy services; providing inter-library loan services, ensuring self-check

machine usable; maintaining error-free records; the friendliness of reference staff; giving access to theses

in print formats; providing document delivery service; having users’ best interest at heart; providing

longer hours for internet access; providing error free services; and providing services for students with

disabilities.

The respondents are least satisfied with the availability of books displayed on shelves (median = 3.0;

mean = 2.91). It is presumed that this opinion is referring to the promptness of the staff in putting books

back on the correct shelves, rather than leaving them lying around on tables or trolleys. When books are

not put back on the correct shelves immediately, it makes it difficult for the users to locate the books they

need.

The results also show that the opinions of the respondents are quite consistent across all the 19 items as

indicated by the small variation in the values of the standard deviations which range from 0.780

(performing services right) to 1.134 (provide photocopying services).

Table 1: Mean Scores for Quality of Services

Statement Median Mean Std.

Deviation

1. Opening hours are suitable 4.0 3.51 0.999

2. Has proper signage 4.0 3.50 0.881

3. Operate an enquiry/reference services 3.0 3.37 0.843

4. Performing services right 3.0 3.36 0.780

5. Willingness to help others 3.0 3.25 0.886

6. Readiness to respond to user 3.0 3.23 0.835

7. Deal with users in caring manner 3.0 3.20 0.843

8. Provides photocopy services 3.0 3.18 1.134

9. Provide inter-library loan services 3.0 3.16 0.977

10. Self-check machine is usable 3.0 3.14 1.019

11. Maintain error free records 3.0 3.12 0.828

12. Reference staff are friendly 3.0 3.11 0.936

13. Give access to theses in printed format 3.0 3.11 0.995

14. Provide document delivery services 3.0 3.09 0.927

15. Users’ best interest in heart 3.0 3.04 0.874

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16. Provides longer hours for Internet

access

3.0 3.04 1.077

17. Error free services 3.0 3.02 0.884

18. Provide services for students with disabilities

3.0 3.01 1.007

19. Books are available on the shelves 3.0 2.91 0.997

Overall satisfaction 3.24 3.18 0.614

4.3 Satisfaction on Collection/ Information

Table 2 shows the overall and individual mean scores of the 12 statements to measure the satisfaction

of respondents on the library’s collection/information. Overall, the level of satisfaction is also average as

indicated by the median score of 3.33 and the mean score of 3.27. Compared with the previous

dimension, collection and information is better than for quality of services. Based on the median scores of

4.0, the majority of the respondents are satisfied with the availability of past exam papers (mean = 3.48)

and OPAC stations (mean =3.40). They are only quite satisfied with the other aspects of collection/

information with mean scores ranging from 3.34 (user-friendly catalog) to 3.05 (library kiosk information

are up-to-date).

Table 2: Mean Scores for Collection and Information

Statement Median Mean Std. Deviation

1. Past exam papers are available 4.0 3.48 0.940

2. OPAC stations are available 4.0 3.40 0.942

3. User-friendly catalog 3.0 3.34 1.021

4. Comprehensive online databases 3.0 3.32 0.946

5. Digital collection are accessible 3.0 3.29 0.931

6. Library portal gives up-to-date information 3.0 3.28 0.923

7. Comprehensive multimedia resources 3.0 3.25 0.879

8. Comprehensive books collection 3.0 3.25 0.948

9. Comprehensive theses collection 3.0 3.22 0.853

10. Complete relevant journals 3.0 3.16 0.971

11. Resources added to collection regularly 3.0 3.09 0.943

12. Library kiosk information are up-to-date 3.0 3.05 0.945


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4.5 Satisfaction on Library Activities

Table 3 presents the mean scores of the four statements used to measure the satisfaction of respondents

on the library’s range of activities such as teaching, learning and training. Overall, the respondents are

divided in their opinion on the library activities as indicated by the median score of only 3.0 and mean

score of only 3.16. Compared with the other three dimensions discussed above, the level of satisfaction

on library activities is the lowest.

Their satisfaction on the individual items is also average as indicated by the median scores of also 3.0

for all of them. The mean scores range from 3.18 (library skills lecture) to 3.10 (ICT skill training). The

responses are also consistent across the four items as indicated by the small variation in the values of the

standard deviations.

Table 3: Mean Scores for Activities


1. Library skills lecture 3.0 3.18 0.901

2. Library orientation 3.0 3.16 0.895

3. Information literacy training 3.0 3.14 0.885

4. ICT skills training 3.0 3.10 0.887


4.6 Satisfaction on the Attitude of Library Staff

The summary statistics for the satisfaction towards the attitude of the library staff are given in Table 4.

The overall median score of 3.0 and the mean score of 3.06 indicate that the respondents are least satisfied

with the attitude of the staff compared with other aspects of the library evaluated.

The median scores for all items are 3.0 indicating that the respondents are divided in their opinion.

Based on the mean scores, on the average, the respondents are quite satisfied with six of the seven

elements. Among the six statements, the mean score is highest for library staff have neat appearance

(3.26) and lowest for library staff are available when needed (3.0). They are least satisfied with the role of

staff in motivating learning as indicated by the mean score of only 2.86.

Table 4: Mean Scores for Staff


1. Library staff have neat appearance 3.0 3.26 0.850

2. Library staff are knowledgeable 3.0 3.11 0.861

3. Reference staff are approachable 3.0 3.08 0.893

4. Library staff instill confidence 3.0 3.07 0.831

5. Library staff understand needs 3.0 3.05 0.865

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6. Library staff are available when needed 3.0 3.00 0.920

7. Library staff can motivate learning 3.0 2.86 0.927


5. CONCLUSIONS

From the results of the study, the following implications are presented. These implications can be

recommendations for the management of UiTM Libraries and other university libraries to improve their

libraries’ services. First implication is the library staff should play an active role in learning and being a

life-long learner. This attitude of learning will motivate learning among users of the library. Second

implication is librarians should also do research on customer focus and user satisfaction. A university

renowned for its research works is normally supported by the extensive and quality library services and

activities. In order to understand research works, the librarians and staff must themselves be doing some

kind of research projects. In addition, the findings from this study prompt several recommendations for

future research work and developments in the area of services and library as a whole. Several possible

areas for future research are to study factors that impact the services to remote users, to study ways on

promoting services and user education, and to study the impact factors of services. Librarians with

lecturers must create active learning environments for students to ensure that educational outcomes are

positive and productive. Learning environments must become interactive, student-centered, dynamic, and

more creative to ensure that students will determine their own learning paths so they can ultimately gain

thinking and life-long learning skills.

This study has presented information from users of UiTM Libraries on their perceptions of the

libraries’ contribution in creating a learning environment. The goal is continuous improvement. Library

staff has to be involved in the process of turning libraries into service organizations with the focus on

users as customers, and programs and services that meet or exceed customer expectations. The elements

that determine expectations are identified; the reasons for gaps between customer expectations and service

performance are explored, and therefore, strategies for narrowing these gaps can be made. Services

provided by university libraries must be oriented to become better customer supporter and address their

problem-solving needs. It is hoped that the information produced through this study will be of use to the

improvement of library services and betterment of the library profession, and serve as a contribution to the

body of knowledge in the area of user satisfaction on libraries’ contribution and their services to users.

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Documents

USERS’ PERCEPTIONS ON THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF UiTM LIBRARIES IN CREATING A LEARNING ENVIRONMENT