Abstract
This study investigated Information Literacy Skills (ILS) as predictors of lecturers‟ Scholarly
publications output (SPO) in federal universities in the North-central Nigeria. Descriptive
survey research design was adopted. The seven federal universities in the North-central,
Nigeria were enumerated with a population of 5185 lecturers. Stratified random sampling
technique was used to select 60% of departments in each of the universities. Disproportionate
stratified random sampling technique was used to select 1065 lecturers (five per department).
Two questionnaire constructed by the researcher were used for data collection. Cronbach
alpha was used to validate the ILS instrument after trial tested on 30 respondents and a
reliability coefficient of (α=0.81) was obtained, while a test re-test analysis was carried out on
SPO using Pearson product moment correlation (PPMC) analysis and the result yielded r =
0.75. These results were high enough to consider the instruments reliable. Data was analysed
using mean, standard deviation and inferential statistics such as PPMC at 0.05 level of
significance. Findings revealed that lecturers have moderate level of lecturers‟ ILS (weighted̅
2.61) as against the threshold of 2.50. ILS (r=0.58) had significant relationship with SPO.
This shows that ILS positively influenced SPO of lecturers in federal universities in the North-
central, Nigeria. Therefore, universities should prioritize the implementation of ILS programs
to boost research capacity of lecturers.
Keywords: Information literacy skills, scholarly publications output, lecturers in federal
universities, North-central, Nigeria.
Publication Date: 2025-05-01