A Systematic Review of Academic Library Spaces as Facilitators of Student Engagement in Higher Education Learning

Abstract

This research paper has been designed to systematically examine and synthesize existing published research documents on the role of academic library spaces in facilitating student engagement in learning within higher education contexts. Portraying a comprehensive analysis of published research documents form different academic contexts, the study synthesizes several findings from the past few decades to explore how academic library spaces are fostering in engagement of students in learning in higher education. The review indicates that these academic library spaces provide a platform for engaging students in their different learning activities in the university. This study has been based on the published research documents extracted from digital databases including Google Scholar, Web of Science, Sage, Tylor & Francis, Springer Nature, Emerald Insights, etc. Researchers continued to extract data on the subject till reaching the point of saturation (97 published research documents). Thematic analysis has been done to present the qualitative data. The findings emphasize that academic library spaces have been dissected into different spaces including collection spaces, special use spaces, user setting spaces, discussion spaces, silent zone spaces, audio\video spaces, and staff workspaces. The review also has studies engagement of students in learning in higher education, and it includes creative learning, collaborative learning, communication skill learning, active learning, cognitive learning, effective learning, and job oriented learning. The study findings assert that engagement of students in learning has been linked with the academic library spaces in higher education.