Information literacy skills training: a factor in student satisfaction with access to high demand material.

Information literacy skills training: a factor in student satisfaction with access to high demand material. Abstract In a survey of Business and Government, Law and InformationSciences students carried out at the University of Canberra The University of Canberra is an Australian university, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. It is the second largest university in Canberra. The University was one of nine Australian universities recognised by the Australian government in 2006 for high achievement in , resultsshowed that in-curricula information literacy Several conceptions and definitions of information literacy have become prevalent. For example, one conception defines information literacy in terms of a set of competencies that an informed citizen of an information society ought to possess to participate intelligently and skills training had agreater impact on students' satisfaction with access to high demandmaterial than the purchase of additional copies of books. This paperwill discuss the results of this survey. Introduction Universities in Australia Australia(ôstrāl`yə), smallest continent, between the Indian and Pacific oceans. With the island state of Tasmania to the south, the continent makes up the Commonwealth of Australia, a federal parliamentary state (2005 est. pop. are required to make publically Adv. 1. publically - in a manner accessible to or observable by the public; openly; "she admitted publicly to being a communist"in public, publicly availabledata on student satisfaction with their course of study. One of thevariables reported on is satisfaction with access to textbooks andrecommended titles held by the library. Also relevant to this researchis the government mandate to Australian universities to provideopportunities for students to develop a range of generic skills whiledoing their degree, one of the identified generic skills beinginformation literacy. At the University of Canberra both First Year Experience surveys(Montesin 2005) and the Rodski Client Satisfaction Survey (Rodski SurveyResearch 2006) reported that a significant number of students(particularly those studying Business, Law, and Information Sciences)were dissatisfied dis��sat��is��fied?adj.Feeling or exhibiting a lack of contentment or satisfaction.dis��satis��fied with the access provided by the library to textbooksand recommended reading titles. Students often leave assignments to thelast minute and are then upset to find the required books are notavailable and they blame the library for not having sufficient copies. In the Australian university setting it is expected that any changein policy and practice that will result in additional universityexpenditure must be shown to be justified. Simply changing the multiplecopying buying ratio in the absence of evidence that this would improvesatisfaction would be unpalatable. Evidence-based research then is partof normal review procedures in university libraries. With the goal of improving student satisfaction by providing morecopies of textbooks and recommended titles a trial was developed toexplore the situation. In the trial students enrolled in one subjectwere provided with extra copies of textbooks and recommended titles andstudents enrolled in another subject were not provided with extra copiesof these key resources. The Trial and the Survey In Semester se��mes��ter?n.One of two divisions of 15 to 18 weeks each of an academic year.[German, from Latin (cursus) s 2 2008, a study on access to high demand materials wasundertaken. The 'trial' units (1) had additional copies oftextbooks and recommended readings purchased: most typically, 1 copy forevery 20 students or 1 copy to every 25 students. (See Appendix 1 forthe detailed formula used in the 'trial' and'control' units.) The 'control' units continued tohave 1 copy purchased for every 30 students. At the end of the semesterstudents in all of the 'trial' units and 8 'control'units were surveyed to assess the impact of having purchased additionalcopies of these high demand materials. The survey was handed out in thelast class of the semester and students had 5 minutes to complete it.Oral instructions were given that they were only to consider access toresources of this unit. (This session was selected due to high attendance at the last classas it is an exam revision session). In each group there were first-yearto graduate-level units. Units from each of the schools--Business &Government, Law, and Information Sciences--were included. In all 576students were surveyed, 257 in the 'trial' units and 319 inthe 'control' units. Included in the survey were 5 units for which an in-curriculainformation literacy skills training had been conducted during thesemester. In terms of student numbers, 228 students had receivedinformation literacy skills training: 134 students in the'control' units and 94 in the 'trial' group units.There had been no attempt made to select units that would haveinformation literacy training provided, for I thought that, on the faceof it, information literacy skills training should have little or noimpact on satisfaction to access to textbooks and recommended readings. It was student comments in the survey that lead me to examine theimpact information literacy skills training had on student satisfactionwith access to high demand materials. Increased Copies is Not the Best Way to Improve StudentSatisfaction with Access to High Demand Materials Survey results suggest that increased copies of textbooks are infact not the best way to improve student satisfaction with access tohigh demand materials and will produce only marginal increases instudent satisfaction. Satisfaction with Library Access to Textbooks Responses regarding students' satisfaction with access totextbooks indicated an increase of only 30/0 as a result of the purchaseof additional copies. 20% of the students in the 'trial' unitsselected 'disagree' or 'strongly disagree' asopposed to 23% of students in the 'control' units. Note theslightly higher percentage in the 'trial' units who selected'strongly agree'. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Satisfaction with Library Access to Recommended Books The students were asked: 'Would you agree that the libraryprovided adequate access to recommended readings?' Again they wereinstructed to limit their comments to their feelings of adequacy ofaccess to recommended books for this unit only. Figure 2 indicates thatthe students' satisfaction with the access the library provided torecommended books only increased by 4% as a result of the purchase ofadditional copies. 16% of the students in the 'trial' unitsselected 'disagree' or 'strongly disagree' asopposed to 20% of students in the 'control' units. The impactof the purchase of additional copies of titles had a greater impact onstudents in the Law School. There was a 6% higher level of satisfactionin the 'trial' units compared to the 'control' unitsfor access to textbooks. The difference was only 3% for recommendedreadings. For students in the School of Business & Government therewas no difference in satisfaction with access to textbooks between the'trial' and 'control' units. There was a 2% increasein satisfaction with access to recommended readings in the'trial' units. The Information Sciences students showed thatincreased copies of textbooks only resulted in 1% fewer students in the'trial' group not selecting either 'disagree' or'strongly disagree', which given the small sample size wouldbe statistically insignificant.. What did emerge, however, was adifference in the degree of dissatisfaction. In the 'trial'units 6% of Information Science students were strongly dissatisfied withaccess as opposed to 14% in the 'control' units. [FIGURE 2 OMITTED] Results of the survey were also considered by level of study, withfirst-year student satisfaction compared to students studying higherunits (including graduate students). The results showed that access tomore copies of textbooks and recommended readings resulted in a 5%(textbooks) and 4% (recommended readings) increase in satisfaction forfirst year students. The level of dissatisfaction was generally higherfor more advanced students. However, the impact of the additional copiesdid make a more significant difference: there was a 10% increase insatisfaction for textbooks and a 4% increase in satisfaction for accessto recommended readings. The Number of Times Students Had to Place Requests The students were asked, "Did you need to request materialbecause it was out on loan when you wanted to use the items?"'How often did this happen during the semester?" This questionwas asked in an attempt to quantify Quantify - A performance analysis tool from Pure Software. the level of non-availability of thehigh demand materials. Did the number of times requests had to be madego down when extra copies were purchased? Figure 3 indicates that therewas very little difference between the requests made in the'trial' units and the 'control' units. In the'trial' units there was even a slight increase in thepercentage of students who made 4 or more requests as the required itemwas on loan. [FIGURE 3 OMITTED] Preferred Loan Periods Currently the library places most textbooks on 3 hour loan and mostrecommended reading titles on a 7 day loan. In the survey students wereasked to select their preferred loan periods. The choices were: 1 day and 7 days 1 day and 3 days 1 day and 4 days 3 hours and 7 days (the status quo [Latin, The existing state of things at any given date.] Status quo ante bellum means the state of things before the war. The status quo to be preserved by a preliminary injunction is the last actual, peaceable, uncontested status which preceded the pending controversy. ) 3 hours and 3 days 3 hours and 4 days Students expressed a preference for 1 day loans over the 3 hourloans (66% of all surveyed students) and a preference for 7 day loansover 3 day or 4 day loans (again, 66% of all surveyed students).Students who commented on why they had selected a 1 day loan period mostfrequently said the 3 hour loan was too short to achieve anything. Thepreference for 7 day loans is easy to understand as the university has ahigh number of part-time students and this survey included studentsstudying in the Saturday Saturday:see week; Sabbath. MBA program. One comment summed up the dilemmain selecting a preferred loan period. The student said '1 day and 7day if borrowing and 3 hours and 3 days if waiting'. Summary The results of the trial that was conducted at the University ofCanberra with the Law, Business & Government and InformationSciences students show that by simply buying additional copies oftextbooks and recommended reading titles the library was only able toimprove the level of student satisfaction by 3% to 4%. In some subjectareas--law, for instance--the increased number of copies made a slightlybigger impact and student satisfaction in the 'trial' unitsrose to 83%--6% higher than for the Law 'control' units fortextbooks and 5% higher satisfaction in the 'trial' units inthe case of recommended reading titles. The success with improvingstudent satisfaction to access to the high demand materials rose whenadditional copies of titles were purchased for more advanced units. 10%more of the students in the more advanced 'trial' unitsexpressed themselves as satisfied with access to textbooks than those inthe 'control' units, whereas only 4% of the students in thefirst-year 'trial' units were more satisfied. Satisfactionwith access to recommended reading titles improved equally with accessto additional titles regardless of the level of study, by 4% in eachcase. Information Literacy Skills Training is a Factor in IncreasingStudent Satisfaction with Access to High Demand Materials As mentioned previously, there had been no attempt to consider therelevance of information literacy skills training in relation to thissurvey; it was comments made by students in their responses that led tothe exploration of this as a variable in increasing student satisfactionrates. A subsequent review of the literature tended to support the view ofa link between students' perception of library print and onlineresources and information literacy instruction (Lombardo Lombardo(lōmbär`dō), Italian family of sculptors and architects. Emigrants from Lombardy c.1470, they were leaders in the architectural Renaissance in Venice.Pietro Lombardo, c. and Miree2003). In a study by Stamatoplos and Mackoy it was argued that increasedsatisfaction with library services was linked to information literacyinstruction (Stamatoplos and Mackoy 1998). In another study relating to relating torelate prep → concernantrelating torelate prep → bez��glich +gen, mit Bezug auf +accthe issue of reading list materials and multiple copies, the authorssuggested that librarians This is a list of people who have practised as a librarian and are well-known, either for their contributions to the library profession or primarily in some other field. might want to look at other ways of increasingsatisfaction with access to these materials than simply buying morecopies of titles (Chelin, McEachran et al. 2005). The findings from thisstudy support one of the suggestions made by Stamatoplos and Mackoy,which was to ensure that students have information skills. To investigate the impact of information literacy skillsinstruction and satisfaction rates the units included in the survey werechecked to determine if there were any in which in-curricula informationliteracy training had been provided. There were 5 units with in all 228students: 134 students in the 'control' units and 94 in the'trial' group units. This appeared to be enough to give somedegree of reliability. A sample size of at least 100 is considerednecessary to conduct a confirmatory factor analysis In statistics, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is a special form of factor analysis. It is used to assess the the number of factors and the loadings of variables. (Leady Lead´ya. 1. Resembling lead. and Ormrod2001). Written responses in the comment area of the survey suggested thatthere could be a link between information literacy skills andsatisfaction. 'Did not know how to go about accessing them or where theywere." 'It's not obvious where to find them, perhaps a settextbook textbookInformatics A treatise on a particular subject. See Bible. area.' (The library has one.) "The library did not hold the set text, or if it did, Icouldn't could��n't?Contraction of could not.couldn'tcould not find it." (The library did hold the set text for theunit.) "Unable to track down text containing source information forthe second assignment." To measure the correlation between satisfaction with access totextbooks and recommended readings and information literacy skillstraining the results of the survey were analysed by 'trial'units that had and had not had information literacy training events andthe 'control' units which had and had not had an informationliteracy in-curricula training event. The Information Literacy skills training that had been provided tostudents in the "Information Literacy" units ranged from a 2hour computer lab session with one Law class to a 30 minute orientationon the use of the library, which included information on accessingtextbooks, recommended titles and unit specific e-reserve electronicmaterials. Orientation sessions were delivered in lecture time. Had theresearch question been focused on examining information literacy skillstraining and student satisfaction with access to high demand materials,the nature and type of training and how each impacted on satisfactionwould have been explored. This should be the subject of furtherresearch. Textbooks in "Trial' Units Even though the same number of textbooks were available to supportthe units, there is a noticeable increase in the satisfaction rating inthe units that had an information literacy skills training session.Figure 4 reveals that 87% were satisfied in the information literacyunits compared to 75% in the units which did not have such a session. Inall the variables considered above, area of study, level of study, noneshowed this degree of change in satisfaction: a 12% increase in studentsatisfaction. [FIGURE 4 OMITTED] Recommended Readings in 'Trial' Units A similar pattern emerged with the satisfaction ratings from the'trial' group for recommended readings, but here thedifference was even greater. Figure 5 shows that 94% satisfaction fromthe information literacy enriched units compared to 76% in the unitswithout information literacy skills training: an 18% improvement instudent satisfaction! [FIGURE 5 OMITTED] Textbooks in "Control' Units The patterns of satisfaction are similar. Figure 6 indicates thatthere was a considerably higher degree of satisfaction in theinformation literacy control group units than in the other control groupunits: 84% satisfaction compared to 69% for textbook access. Animprovement in satisfaction of 15%. [FIGURE 6 OMITTED] Recommended Readings in 'Control' Units In the case of access to recommended reading titles, 85% ofstudents expressed satisfaction in the information literacy unitscompared to 75% student satisfaction for access to recommended readingsin the units which had no information literacy training event. This wasa smaller difference than that in the 'trial' units. However,it was still a 10% improvement in student satisfaction when there was aninformation literacy training event included in the unit. These findingscan be noted in Figure 7. [FIGURE 7 OMITTED] Summary Information literacy skills training in a unit was the best way toincrease student satisfaction with access to the high demand materials.There was a decrease in dissatisfaction in access to textbooks in theinformation literacy 'trial' units of 12% compared to the noninformation literacy 'trial' units: 13% dissatisfactioncompared to 25%. Similarly, there was a decrease in dissatisfaction inrelation to access to recommended reading titles, this time with thedifference being even greaten In the information literacy'trial' units, dissatisfaction dropped to 6% compared to 24%in the non-information literacy 'trial' units. The pattern in the decrease in dissatisfaction in the informationliteracy enriched units continued in the control units, the decreasebeing 15% less dissatisfaction in the information literacy'control' units for textbooks and a 10% decrease indissatisfaction in the information literacy 'control' units inrelation to access to recommended reading titles. Conclusion At the University of Canberra recent changes have required thatboth teaching and administrative units demonstrate that there is goodreason for what they are doing, and good reason to undertake any newactivity and to show evidence for this. The University Library as aconsequence has moved towards adopting evidence based practice The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter.Please help [ improve the introduction] to meet Wikipedia's layout standards. You can discuss the issue on the talk page. 2 to guideit in making changes to resources and services. Evidence based practiceinvolves using formal research methods to provide statistically reliabledata on which to base decisions and establish best practice to improvethe standards of service and to provide services that are costeffective. The library now evaluates any trials formally beforeproceeding to implement a new service or change in service. EBP EBP Evidence Based PracticeEBP Enterprise Buyer ProfessionalEBP Education Business PartnershipEBP European Business ProgrammeEBP Efficiency Bandwidth ProductEBP Electronic Billing and PaymentEBP Extended Base PointerEBP Error Back Propagation was usedto evaluate the trial of the Library Rover service, again it was used toundertake a review of the library procedures for dealing with requestsfor course materials, to give just two examples. Based on the findingsoutlined in this paper the library opted to not buy additional copies ofthe high demand materials as a way of increasing student satisfaction.The ratio of 1 copy to 30 students remained and only the cap of 4 copieswas later replaced with a cap of 6 copies for the large units. Insteadthe focus of the Library shifted to extending the in curriculainformation literacy skills training especially in the large first yearunits. This change in focus linked in well with the government mandateto universities to provide students with a set of generic skills, at theUniversity of Canberra the Academic Skills program was already focusedon this, therefore the Library and the Academic Skills program workedtogether to meet with key academic staff to organise appropriatetraining for identified core first-year units. Appendix 1 The formula used in the 'trial' units was: Undergraduates--Reading lists with 10 or less titles Textbooks 1:20 1 copy 3 hour loan remainder 7 day loan Recommended Readings 1:25 All copies 7 day loan Supplementary Readings 1 copy General Collection Undergraduates--Reading lists with 11 or more titles Textbooks 1:20 1 copy 3 hour loan remainder 7 day loan Recommended Readings 1:30 All copies 7 day loan Supplementary Readings 1 copy General Collection Graduates--Reading lists with 10 or less titles Textbooks 1:20 All copies 7 day loan Recommended Readings 1:20 All copies 7 day loan Supplementary Readings 1 copy General Collection Graduates--Reading lists with 11 or more titles Textbooks 1:25 All copies 7 day loan Recommended Readings 1:25 All copies 7 day loan Supplementary Readings 1 copy General Collection Cap of 15 copies of any 1 item The formula used in the 'control' units was: 1 copy per 30 students, with a cap at 4 copies for courses with 100or more students. Textbooks are placed on 3 hour loan and recommendedreadings on 7 day loan. References Chelin, J., M. McEachran, et ak (2005). "Five hundred into 4won't go-how to solve the problem of reading listexpectations." SCONUL SCONUL Society of College, National and University Libraries (UK)FOCUS 36: 49. Leady, Rand Rand?See Witwatersrand.rand?1?n.See Table at currency.[Afrikaans, after(Witwaters)rand. Ormrod J. (2001) Practical Research Planning andDesign. 7th ed..Upper Saddle River Saddle River may refer to: Saddle River, New Jersey, a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey Saddle River (New Jersey), a tributary of the Passaic River in New Jersey NJ Lombardo, S. V and C E. Miree (2003) "Caught in the Web: TheImpact of Library Instruction on Business Students' Perceptions andUse of Print and Online Resources." College & ResearchLibraries 64(1): 6-22 Montesin, H. (2005). Division of Business, Law & InformationSciences First Year Experience Survey Report 2004. Canberra, Universityof Canberra: 1-23. Partridge partridge,common name applied to various henlike birds of several families. The true partridges of the Old World are members of the pheasant family (Phasianidae); the common European or Hungarian species has been successfully introduced in parts of North America. , H. and Hailam, G (2007) "Evidence based Practiceand Information Literacy" in Exploring Methods in InformationLiteracy Research. (edited by Lipu, S. Williamson K. and Lloyd, A. (3)Wagga Wagga Wagga Wagga(wŏg`ə wŏg`ə), city (1991 pop. 40,875), New South Wales, SE Australia, on the Murrumbidgee River. It is the center of an agricultural district with food-processing and rubber-goods plants and foundries. Rodski Survey Research (2006). Library Client Survey Detailed DataReport May 2006. Stamatoplos, A. and R Mackoy (1998). "Effects of LibraryInstruction on University Students' Satisfaction with the Library:A Longitudinal Study longitudinal studya chronological study in epidemiology which attempts to establish a relationship between an antecedent cause and a subsequent effect. See also cohort study. ." College & Research Libraries 59(4): 323334. This is a refereed paper (1) A Unit is the Australian degree structure is an individualcourse or subject, usually worth 3 points towards a degree. (2) For a fuller discussion of Evidence Based Practice in thecontext of libraries see "Evidence-based practice and informationliteracy" by Helen Partridge and Gillian Hallam. (3) Acknowledgements: The two referees who made some valuable suggestions. To Anita Crotty, University Librarian at the University of Canberra for her interest in this project and her support and encouragement in convincing me that this research would be of value to other librarians. Valerie Perrett is the National Library Manager for theCommonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions Director of Public Prosecutionsn → fiscal m/f general del EstadoDirector of Public Prosecutionsdirect (Brit) n → Generalstaatsanwalt m. Before moving to the CDPP CDPP Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (Australia)CDPP Center on Drugs and Public Policy this year Valerie was the Academic Planning Librarian (1) A person who works in the data library and keeps track of the tapes and disks that are stored and logged out for use. Also known as a "file librarian" or "media librarian." See data library.(2) See CA-Librarian. for Business &Government, Law, and Information Sciences at the University of Canberra.Prior to that, she worked at the as the Co-ordinator of the GraduateInformation Literacy Program at the ANU Anu(ā`n), ancient sky god of Sumerian origin, worshiped in Babylonian religion. . At the University of Hawaii (body, education) University of Hawaii - A University spread over 10 campuses on 4 islands throughout the state.http://hawaii.edu/uhinfo.html.See also Aloha, Aloha Net. shewas the Instructional and Outreach Outreach is an effort by an organization or group to connect its ideas or practices to the efforts of other organizations, groups, specific audiences or the general public. Librarian. Valerie was also at MasseyUniversity Massey University (Māori: Te Kunenga ki Purehuroa) is New Zealand's largest university with approximately 40,000 students. It has campuses in Palmerston North (sites at Turitea and Hokowhitu), Wellington (in the suburb of Mt Cook) and in New Zealand New Zealand(zē`lənd), island country (2005 est. pop. 4,035,000), 104,454 sq mi (270,534 sq km), in the S Pacific Ocean, over 1,000 mi (1,600 km) SE of Australia. The capital is Wellington; the largest city and leading port is Auckland. for 10 years before moving to Australia in2001. She has an MLIS MLIS Master of Library and Information ScienceMLIS Multilingual Information SocietyMLIS Molecular Laser Isotope SeparationMLIS Masters of Library and Information StudiesMLIS Medical/Legal Information Services degree from Victoria University of Wellington.