The impact of academic libraries on students' academic achievement: The relationship between learning styles and information seeking anxiety

Information seeking anxiety is a type of anxiety that affects academic performance. The present study was aimed at investigating the relationship between learning styles and information seeking anxiety in relation to the academic achievement of students. This was a descriptive-analytic research, and the study population consisted of students who had passed at least one semester in Behbahan University, Iran. The sample size was calculated 181 from the Morgan table. The results of this study showed that most of the students used the ‘assimilating' learning style. It was concluded that there was no significant difference between anxiety levels and the field of study. Also, there was no relationship between learning styles and age and gender. Moreover, there was no relationship of gender, academic semester, and age with academic achievement. Even though, there was no relationship between information seeking anxiety and learning styles vis a vis academic achievement, the assimilating learning style was preferred by the majority of the students. The comparison of learning styles with information seeking anxiety was a distinctive feature of this study, indicating that different aspects of learning did not have much effect on the anxiety levels of individuals, which could be the basis for further research on personality dimensions such as self-concept and intrinsic motivation in relation to information seeking anxiety and academic achievement.