Google Scholar or University Digital Libraries: A comparison of student perceptions and intention to use

Faiz Abdullah Alotaibi · Frances Johnson · Jennifer Rowley

16 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Librarianship and Information Science

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Library Science and Information Literacy Technology Adoption and User Behaviour Web and Library Services

Abstract

Google Scholar has become an important search platform for students in higher education, and, as such, can be regarded as a competitor to university libraries. Previous research has explored students’ intention to use Google Scholar (GS) and University Digital Libraries (UDLs), but there is a lack of comparative studies that explore students’ preferences between these two platforms. Therefore, this study seeks to explore the search behaviour of a select group of users, international postgraduate students and more specifically compares the factors that influence their use of Google Scholar and University Digital Libraries (UDLs). A questionnaire-based survey, based on the factors in the UTAUT model (unified theory of acceptance and use of technology) was conducted to collect data on acceptance and use of technology of GS and UDL’s respectively. Data was collected from 400 international postgraduate students studying in the United Kingdom. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to establish the contextual influencing factors, whilst structural equation modelling examined the predicted model. The results suggest some differences between the influence of various factors between the UDL dataset and the GS datasets. They suggest that social influence (SI) did not affect behavioural intention (BI) for either data set, but that for the UDL dataset, effort expectancy did not affect BI, whereas for the GS dataset facilitating conditions did not influence BI. The approach taken in this study further facilitates research into the use of search tools to progress beyond ease of use as a main driver and to explore the relationship between internal and external influences of use. Recommendations for further research are suggested and the value of the insights gained for UDLs and their provision and support for all students is discussed.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 16 citations exist upstream.

References

1989Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and User Acceptance of Information Technology 2003User Acceptance of Information Technology: Toward A Unified View1 1975Belief, Attitude, Intention and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research 2000A Theoretical Extension of the Technology Acceptance Model: Four Longitudinal Field Studies 1985From Intentions to Actions: A Theory of Planned Behavior 2012Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology1 2018Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus: A systematic comparison of citations in 252 subject categories 2015Google Scholar, Scopus and the Web of Science: a longitudinal and cross-disciplinary comparison

Cited by

2024Retail 5.0: Creating Resilient and Customer-Centric Shopping Experiences through Advanced Technologies 2025Assessing digital library accessibility: Compliance and violations 2024Information experience of undergraduate students when optimizing google search for their study 2025Online information seeking behaviour of postgraduate engineering students at Kyambogo University in Uganda

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.