Footholds and Foundations: Setting Freshmen on the Path to Lifelong Learning
- 1. Footholds and Foundations Setting Freshmen on the Path to Lifelong Learning Gayla Byerly, Annie Downey, & Frank Gosnell LOEX of the West 2006, Hawaii, HI
- 2. Basic Background Facts University of North Texas Core curriculum = lists of electives Required courses include: Basic U.S. History Political Science Freshmen English (1310 & 1320)
- 3. ACRL Standards Library instruction sessions teach ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education within our curriculum Research skills Catalog searching Database searching Help from a librarian
- 4. Success? English Library Instruction Sessions Average about 80 sessions per academic year Four years of successful collaboration with the English department
- 5. Assessment Options Paper surveys Online surveys Problem: Students report what they think they know Goal: empirical evidence of learning Solution: Create our own performance-based software
- 6. Software Development General Requirements Provide assessment on each student PC Collect anonymous individual results Collect browser activity for each PC only during actual testing timeframe Start assessment simultaneously for all students from teacher PC
- 7. Software Development Requirement Provide assessment on each student PC Solution Use HTML forms that collect info as students interact with the forms while taking the assessment Submit assessment forms to a web server that will save the results to files for viewing / analysis
- 8. Software Development Requirement Collect anonymous, individual results Solution Use host name of PC as identifier to link together pre-test and post-test results for comparison Student names are never obtained
- 9. Software Development Requirement Collect browser activity for each PC only during actual testing timeframe Solution Custom program to monitor start / stop times and analyze browser history for both pre-test and post-test individually
- 10. Software Development Requirement Start assessment simultaneously for all students from teacher PC Solution All files installed on each PC at every reboot NetSupport School – from one PC, you can… Reboot all student PCs simultaneously Run executables on all student PCs Distribute files to one or all PCs, if needed Monitor student PC activities
- 11. Assessment Tool Development of Assessment Tool Worked with Frank Gosnell to develop software Identified skills necessary for success at research paper assignment Prepared questions that demonstrate skills Identified URLs that point to success in demonstrating skills
- 12. Assessment Instrument Step 1 : How likely are you to ask a librarian for help?
- 13. Assessment Instrument Step 2 : From the UNT Libraries’ homepage, find the Webpage that has help from a librarian.
- 14. Assessment Instrument Step 3 : Perform a subject search for Robert Frost in the library catalog.
- 15. Assessment Instrument Step 4 : Perform a search in Academic Search Premier for the term Robert Frost.
- 16. Basic Background Facts UNT Library Instruction 900 English 1320 students attended a library instruction session in Fall 2005 1475 English 1320 students attended a library instruction session in Spring 2006 Total = 2375 students
- 17. Basic Background Facts UNT Library Instruction Assessment 48 English 1320 classes completed the assessment in Fall 2005 & Spring 2006 90 minute class sessions only Completely anonymous Institutional Review Board approved 499 useable results
- 18. Library Anxiety – Pre-test How likely are students to ask for help from a librarian? Very =40% Somewhat = 30.72% Neutral = 17.11% Not at all = 2.47% No response = 9.69%
- 19. Library Anxiety – Post-test How likely are students to ask for help from a librarian? Very = 57.11% Somewhat = 27.8 % Neutral = 7.63% Not at all = .21% No response = 7.22%
- 20. Library Anxiety – Comparison Positive Results Up 14.71% Neutral Results Down 11.68% Negative Results Down 2.2% 2.47% 7.22% 9.69% No response 2.2% .21% 2.47% Not at all 9.48% 7.63% 17.11% Neutral 2.4% 27.8% 30.2% Some- what 17.11% 57.11% 40% Very Change Post-test Pre-test
- 21. Results – Pre-test What do students know in terms of basic library technology skills when they first start college?
- 22. Results – Searching Skills Pre-test Results
- 23. Results – Analysis Our thoughts on students’ basic library technology skills on college entry: Basic searches essential to information literacy Foundational building blocks Necessity of evaluation skills Using library resources makes evaluation easier
- 24. Results – Post-test Do students understand some tools better than others after instruction?
- 25. Results – Searching Skills Post-test Results
- 26. Results – Analysis Percentage changes between students’ pre-test and post-test results: 33.2 % increase in ability to search Academic Search Premier. 9.89% increase in ability to search the catalog. 9.48% decrease in ability to find help from a librarian.
- 27. Results – Analysis Questions about the comparison of pre-test and post-test results: Why is there such a difference between the level of students’ ability to search the catalog and Academic Search Premier? Why did ability to find the Help page decrease between the pre-test and post-test?
- 28. Results – Analysis What we show in class. What we should show.
- 29. Results – Post Post-test Are students retaining what we are teaching?
- 30. Results – Searching Skills Post Post-test Results
- 31. Results – Analysis Ability to find Help page in the post post-test is significantly higher than it was in both the pre and post-tests. Only slight decrease in post-test and post post-test catalog and Academic Search Premier
- 32. Results 47.43% 49.69% 16.49% Academic Search Premier 7.8% 11.13% 1.24% Catalog 73.7% 58.56% 68.04% Help Post Post-test Post-test Pre-test
- 33. Conclusions Catalog is much more difficult for students to use Even though only doing one-shot instruction, students are retaining the skills Library anxiety decreases after library instruction session
- 34. Finally… Assessment tool is under development to be offered as either freeware or at a cost recovery. For more information on assessment software: http://www.library.unt.edu/assess
- 35. Questions? Acknowledgements: We would like to thank the following people for their support in this project: Ellen Truax, Business Librarian, University of North Texas – for her assistance with statistical analysis. Lilly Ramin, Library Specialist, University of North Texas – for her in-depth literature review and helpful assistance and feedback throughout the project.