1. Freshmen Receiving Library Instruction had Significantly Higher Scores
The Long and Winding Road: Connecting Library Instruction to Student Persistence
Wendy Hardenberg, Library Instruction Coordinator; Michael Ben-Avie, Director of Assessment; Polly Beals, Liberal Education Program Director
Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, CT
Question:
Do students enrolled in classes that schedule library sessions experience improved student success metrics? (e.g. GPA, retention, engagement, iSkills score, etc.)
We’re starting with this input
How We Plan to Get There
Freshmen Receiving Library Instruction had Significantly Higher Scores
Faculty Scheduling Library Sessions Saw Positive Change in Their Students
From the Literature:
• Critical to integrate library data with institutional data; without joined data, joint analysis is difficult (Oakleaf, 2010).
• Student GPA has an impact on retention, and students receiving library instruction were found to have higher GPAs than students who didn’t, implying that library instruction has an effect on student performance and therefore retention (Kirk, Vance, & Gardner, 2012).
• Students who receive upper-level instruction were found to have higher GPAs than students with no instruction or only freshman-level instruction (Bowles-Terry, 2012).
• The higher the number of library workshops offered to a group of students, the higher the tendency for a positive impact on student GPA (Wong & Cmor, 2011).
• For complete citation list, see handout.
Students utilizing more library resources vs. open internet sources
Students engaging in better evaluation of information sources
Great Change
No Change
No Change
Great Change
Students appropriately citing the sources they used for a paper or project
Students remarking that they had learned something new
The Process:
Phase 1
Collect course and section numbers of all classes that scheduled library instruction from Fall 2011 to Spring 2014
Faculty and student surveys can begin to tell us about these short-term outcomes
No Change
Great Change
No Change
Great Change
Preliminary Findings:
• FYE students whose classes schedule library sessions are better developing their library/information literacy skills than those whose classes do not.
• Faculty who schedule library sessions (not just in FYE) see positive change as a result.
We collected baseline data in 2013 using NSSE’s new information literacy module
Phase 2
Collect results from May 2013 iSkills pilot (N=15), Spring 2013 NSSE information literacy module (N=512), differences between FYE sections with library instruction vs. those without, Fall 2013 FYE library session evaluations (N=1129), Spring 2014 faculty survey on changes in students after library sessions (N=54)
Conclusions & Recommendations:
SCSU is extremely focused on student success right now. The Student Success Taskforce has issued six recommendations to help bolster graduation and retention rates. Based on what we’ve learned from Buley Library’s assessment project, library instruction is definitely a factor in students’ academic development and an intervention that many faculty members value. As a probable contributor to student success, we’d like to make sure all students are gaining these vital skills in as programmatic a way as possible. Specifically, our assessment showed that FYE students in sections that schedule library sessions had higher self-reported knowledge of library skills and services, and faculty across all disciplines notice certain positive changes in their students after library sessions. Now that we know this, our next step is to increase collaboration between faculty and librarians and find out what happens to these students after the library sessions are done.
Selected NSSE Information Literacy Results
4-point scale,
higher score indicates greater engagement
Majority of Freshmen Report Getting What They Needed Out of Library Sessions
The difference between what I can find with Google and
what I can find with the library
How to look up a book and its call number in CONSULS
and locate it on the shelf
How to use a library database to find articles
87%
91%
76%
Phase 3 [still to come]
Connect Phase 1 and Phase 2 data to individual student data to find any patterns or anomalies
24%
13%
10%
Acknowledgement:
This project is part of the program “Assessment in Action: Academic Libraries and Student Success” which is undertaken by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) in partnership with the Association for Institutional Research and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. The program, a cornerstone of ACRL's Value of Academic Libraries initiative, is made possible by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
I got what I needed
I wish I had more
I got what I needed
I wish I had more
I got what I needed
I wish I had more