Access to Online Academic Databases to Improve the Quality of Academic Research among Postgraduate Students of Education in Nigerian Universities

Authors

Baptista C. Chigbu, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, NigeriaFollow

Abstract

This study was designed to determine the access to and utilization of online databases by postgraduate students of the faculties of education of the six foremost universities in Nigeria. The study sought to ascertain the online databases accessed by the most of the students, factors influencing regularity of access and constraints to access regular access to the databases. A total of 365 postgraduate students were randomly drawn from the six universities by proportional allocation for the study. Questionnaire was used to obtain relevant data which were analyzed using multiple responses and binary logistic regression. The most accessed online databases were Google Scholar, ResearchGate, JSTOR, Science DOAJ and EBSCOHost, motivated by free access and relevance to research interests. The documents were mainly used for postgraduate dissertation/thesis and assignments. Sex, degree in-view, free access, finance, personal laptop and Smartphone, and helpfulness of research materials significantly influenced regularity of access. The males are 0.963 times more likely to access online databases regularly than the females while the PhD students are 1.041 times more likely to access online databases more regularly than the other postgraduate categories. It is recommended that the universities should subscribe to notable online databases and improve on the quality of institution-based internet facility to boost access to and of online databases.