Library Instruction Assessment of First Year Undergraduates at a Small College Library

Patricia M. Duck

Evan Cornell

University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg

September 28, 2004

Who We Are

• Small regional campus library

• Part of the University of Pittsburgh Library System

• About 1900 undergraduate students– 70% commuter, 30% resident

• 20 majors

Why we did an outcomes assessment study

• Previous history of assessment

• Campus evaluation efforts

• Response to a new environment

• How (or if) library users change as a result of their contact with the library and its instructional program

How we did it

• Picked a study group: Freshman Seminar– 181 “captive” students

• Developed pre and posttest based on the Daniel Library at The Citadel (see Hernon’s An Action Plan for Outcomes Assessment)

• Involved psych dept., seminar faculty and senior capstone students

Pretest and Posttest: 12 questions

• “Action” questions: – find a book in the library– find a journal article in the digital library

• “Instructional” questions:– did you receive instruction; how many

times?

• “Opinion” questions: – do you agree?

Sample Pretest Form

Two instructional sessions

• Overview of the library

• Introduction to local reference books and LC system

• How to search Pittcat (library catalog)

• Discussion of the “right” vocabulary

• Comparison of results searching databases in the Digital Library vs Internet

• Evaluation of internet resources

Pittcat Screen s=gambling

Pitt Digital Library Screen

Crunching the numbers

• Manual tabulation• Access database• Report delivered to

psych students • Data input and run

through SPSS • Only 71 (out of 181)

were usable

Question 1: Find a book

Q1 - Find book

01020304050607080

nothing Pittcat book Pittcat bookother library

Pittcat bookMillstein

Pretest (n=181) Postest (n=71)

Question 2: Find an article

Q2 - Find article

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

nothing/did notprint

k=gambling, notsu=

article on theinternet

article in the PittDigital Lib

Pretest (n=181) Postest (n=71)

Questions 3-9: Results in Percentages

Question 10: Everything is on the Web

Q10 - Everything on the web

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

SD D DK A SA

Pretest (n=181) Postest (n=71)

Question 11: Examine credentials

Q11 - Examine web author's credentials

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

SD D DK A SA

Pretest (n=181) Postest (n=71)

Question 12: Document information

Q12 - Always document www info

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

SD D DK A SA

Pretest (n=181) Postest (n=71)

Statistical Results for Question 1 & 2

Mean Standard Deviation N=only participants with a score >0 on pre/post tests

Pre Score Q1 2.85 0.359 54Post Score Q1 2.87 0.391 54

Pre Score Q2 2 0.667 37Post Score Q2 2.73 0.56 37

Problems Encountered

• Explaining the pretest and posttest

• Completing the pretest and posttest

• Plagiarism

• Coding of surveys

• Lack of time for focus groups

The Next Step

• Re-do the survey with specific instructions

• Revise coding

• Have focus groups

• Library Experiences at UPG

Thank you for your attention!

Dr. Pat DuckMillstein LibraryUniversity of Pittsburgh at Greensburg1150 Mt Pleasant Rd.Greensburg PA 15601724- 836- 9689pmd1@pitt.edu