Students’ Intentions To Use E-Resources: An Application Of The Theory Of Planned Behaviour

The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) postulates that behavioural intention (BI) is predicted by attitude towards behaviour (AB), subjective norm (SN) and perceived behavioural control (PBC). However, the theoretical sufficiency and usefulness of this theory is yet to be confirmed in library and information science (LIS). The purpose of this paper is to define a specific target behaviour in library and information science, which is LIS students’ use of e-resources, and then use TPB to investigate students’ intentions to use these resources. An elicitation study was used to identify the LIS students’ salient beliefs and develop the closed – ended questionnaire used for this study. The validity and reliability of the questionnaire was determined using exploratory factor analysis. A total of 120 LIS students participated in the study. The data collected were analyzed using multiple regression analysis for the TPB constructs and regression analysis for the salient beliefs. All the statistics used were computed using SPSS. The results showed that, though the three constructs were found to be predictors of LIS students’ intention to use e-resources, attitude was the most significant predictor. The salient beliefs were all significant predictors of the direct measures of behavioural intention or LIS students’ intentions. The paper concludes that LIS students’ decisions to use e-resources are mostly influenced by attitude which has more support of the perceived behavioural control than the subjective norm