Mentoring, Cataloguing Self-Efficacy and Expectancy among Early-Career Librarians in Federal Universities in South-East Nigeria: A Social Cognitive Career Perspective

AbstractEffective cataloguing remains the cornerstone of librarianship, yet the complexities of modern cataloguing standards and technologies often present significant challenges for early-career librarians, thus highlighting the importance of targeted support through structured mentoring programmes. The present study investigated the role of mentoring in shaping the cataloguing experiences of early-career librarians, focusing on how mentoring influences their cataloguing self-efficacy and outcome expectation beliefs. It aims to identify the mentoring programmes early-career librarians are exposed to, and determine the impact of mentoring on their cataloguing self-efficacy and outcome expectation beliefs. Using a quantitative research approach, data were collected through a survey questionnaire administered to 63 early-career librarians. The data were analysed using SPSS (version 25). Findings revealed that early-career librarians have been exposed to 13 different mentoring programmes, with One-on-one Mentoring (90.5%), Supervisory Mentoring (88.9%), and Staff Rotation (87.3%), being the most commonly cited. In contrast, Reverse Mentoring, External Mentoring, and E-mentoring were the least cited, with (28.6%), (23.8%), and (23.8%) of participants respectively reporting exposure to these programmes. Overall, the mean (7.90) showed that early-career librarians have a moderate level of exposure to mentoring, thus indicating a positive leaning towards exposure to mentoring. Furthermore, the descriptive statistics of Mean and Standard Deviation computed to determine early-career librarians’ levels of self-efficacy and outcome expectation beliefs in cataloguing revealed a very high level in each variable (Mean=4.30, Mean =4.32, respectively). Regression analyses demonstrated that mentoring significantly influenced cataloguing self-efficacy (β = 0.41, p =.000) and outcome expectation beliefs (β = 0.24, p =.043) of early-career librarians. This study, therefore, concluded that mentoring plays a crucial role in enhancing the cognitive belief factors essential for skill development in cataloguing by boosting self-efficacy and outcome expectations among early-career librarians. Among other recommendations, the study highlighted the need to prioritise institutionalising and formalising mentoring programmes, particularly the one-on-one, supervisory, and job/staff rotation types to enhance early-career librarians’ skill development in cataloguing, while expanding or strengthening other mentoring programmes, to cater to their diverse learning styles, needs and preferences