The foreign students and the Victoria University of Wellington library: a survey on the difficulties the foreign and New Zealand students encountered when using the Victoria university of Wellington library

Abstract

A survey research was conducted in June and July of 1994 at VUW among a sample of foreign and New Zealand students to determine the difficulties and the factors that were responsible for the difficulties they encountered when using the VUW Library. The focus of the study was primarily on foreign students although New Zealanders were included in the study in order to compare the experiences of foreign students to New Zealanders. The expectation that more foreign students would be affected than New Zealanders was generally true in a majority of cases. However, when statistical tests of significance were done for the proportion of Students who responded, more foreign students found about 30 percent of the areas difficult to use while more New Zealanders found about 2 percent of the areas difficult to use. The areas where difficulties were encountered and the factors that were responsible for the difficulties the students faced were the same except for about 5 percent of the areas where only the foreign students had problems. Further, more students found the VUW Library easier to use and were also not affected by the factors that were responsible for the difficulties few students were experiencing. The proportion of students who encountered difficulties was more for foreign students than New Zealanders. More foreign students also found the VUW Library easier to use. Among the solutions recommended, more New Zealanders supported the suggestions made however a fairly large number of them did not support the suggestion to provide compulsory library instruction sessions on a semester basis. Other suggestions were: the VUW Library to provide more detailed “how to use” printed guides for the areas where students normally encounter difficulties; make available more books and periodicals; improve signs in the library; library staff to be polite and friendly and academics to encourage and assist their students in their library use by building into their courses provisions where students are required to use a variety of library materials.