UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS READING E-BOOK IN SELECTED KWARA STATE UNIVERSITIES, NIGERIA

Ass. Prof. Tella, Adeyinka, Dr. AMUDA, Halimah Odunayo & Simplice, Moyosore

Abstract

The study investigated the attitude of undergraduates’ students’ towards reading the e-book in Kwara State Universities. The study drew on 200 undergraduate students selected from four universities in Kwara State, Nigeria. The questionnaire was used to collect data from the participants. Five research questions were developed to guide the study. The findings show that (75%) which constitute the majority of the respondents agreed that reading e-books do not involve any stress. A total of 93 of the students have access to e-books and indicated that they read the e-book for academic work while a large proportion of the students (91.5%) read e-book as supplementary to printed materials.  The most commonly read e-book format among the students is the portable document format PDF and this is read daily by the undergraduate students. Majority of the respondents 76% indicated their satisfaction reading e-books and can recommend to friends.   The major problems encountered with reading e-books is the cost of access, printing and downloading, and discomfort of reading on the computer screen. Other major challenges identified with reading e-books are language barriers, difficulties in accessing the internet and inadequate skill of using search engines to search for e-books. The study recommends the provision of good Internet facilities should be made readily available to the students at a very low so as to increase access to and reading of e-books by the students