School Library and Students’ Motivation towards Learning in Public Senior Secondary Schools in Oyo State, Nigeria

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the availability and quality of school library resources and students’ motivation, factors influencing students’ motivation to learn, effective use of school library resources, knowledge of how the school library can be a catalyst for fostering a love of learning, promoting academic achievement and supporting students overall educational experience. A descriptive survey research design was used. Fifteen (15) schools from each of the three (3) senatorial districts were randomly selected making a total of forty-five (45) schools. The institution with a working library, having students in attendance for at least nine terms was chosen. One thousand three hundred and sixty-four (1,364) students were selected for the study. Thirty (30) item instrument was adapted from works done by (Harisanty, 2019; Liman, Rasegojwa and Muhammad,2021). The socio-demographic attributes of the respondents showed that 546 of the respondents were males while 818 were females. 485, 635 and 244 were in SS1, SS2 and SS3 respectively. Statistically there was no significant difference (t (1,1362) = - 0.54) in what motivates students towards the use of school libraries based on gender (p = 0.78 >0.05), on the class level, there was no statistically significant difference (F (2.1363) = 2.46) in what motivates students towards the use of school libraries based on level (p = 0.09 > 0.05). All the findings showed that the school library resources, environment, librarian and teachers support greatly add to the academic success of students. The study recommended among others that students regularly visit libraries to explore resources and services for there are treasures stored in school libraries waiting to be discovered, teachers are to integrate library resources into their lesson plans and government should increase funding for school libraries and librarian positions.