E-Resource Utilization and Information Literacy: Patterns, Purposes, and Problems among Undergraduate Students in a Private Higher Education Institution

Abstract

This study examined the electronic information resource (e-resource) utilization patterns, explicit academic motivations, and localized navigation barriers among undergraduate students at a private higher education institution (HEI) in the Philippines, to provide an empirical basis for optimizing digital library investments. Using a descriptive, retrospective document-analysis design, the study analyzed an existing institutional dataset consisting of 311 archived survey questionnaires collected during the 2025–2026 academic year across sixteen multidisciplinary academic programs. The findings revealed a pronounced discovery-use gap and collection polarization: the Philippine E-Journals (PEJ) platform accounted for the majority of student engagement (51.61%), well ahead of Google Scholar (30.87%) and EBSCOhost (7.40%). Undergraduate database interaction was largely transactional, driven primarily by compliance requirements for research papers (70.00%) and individual assignments (56.77%), and 64.52% of respondents rated the available collection as only “moderately relevant” to their research needs. A further, critical paradox emerged: although students reported high confidence in their baseline information technology (IT) skills, they encountered a substantial barrier when filtering search results, with the presence of irrelevant information identified as the most pervasive obstacle to effective database use. This difficulty was compounded by slow campus internet connectivity, while 56.13% of respondents had never received formal library training, and 90.00% left the program-adequacy item unanswered—a pattern consistent with students being unable to evaluate a service they had never experienced. The study concludes that substantial financial investment in commercial database subscriptions does not automatically translate into meaningful student engagement without structured instructional intervention. It is recommended that the institution establish a mandatory, credit-bearing Information Literacy Support (ILS) program, reallocate its e-resource budget based on actual usage data, formally embed targeted database tasks into course syllabi, and provide a dedicated, high-bandwidth Wi-Fi connection for the library’s electronic portals.