Students’ perceptions of the user education programmes at a South African university

First-time university students lack the practical and complex skills to harness, evaluate, use and create information to achieve their educational, occupational, social and personal information goals. The purpose of this study was to explore students’ perceptions of user education programmes at the North-West University, South Africa. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 320 students across two faculties. The study’s findings reveal that the majority of first-year students had participated in different user education programmes, with 80.7% of the students indicating that they were satisfied with the content and quality of the programmes. Over 90% of the students who participated in the programmes affirmed that they had enhanced their capacity to make effective searches for information and improved their skills in correctly citating and referencing information sources for their assignments. The majority of the students searched for information and resources independently of librarians. This article draws several conclusions and makes recommendations based on the findings.