Turku University Library on Information Literacy Mission Evaluating the Impact of Information Literacy Skills Teaching Jaana Taylerson Mathematics & Natural Sciences Library
Jan 14, 2016
Turku University Library on Information Literacy
Mission
Evaluating the Impact of Information Literacy Skills Teaching
Jaana TaylersonMathematics & Natural Sciences Library
University of Turku
Second largest university in Finland 18 000 students Six faculties: Humanities (HUM), Mathematics
and Natural Sciences (MNS), Medicine, Law, Social Sciences (SOC), Education (EDU)
Turku University Library Approximately 100 employees Main Library and 20 other library units Team of 10 Librarians/Information specialists
providing various amounts of IL teaching
Mission
To raise the awareness and importance of IL at institutional level
To integrate IL into the academic curriculum
To justify the needs of more resources towards IL teaching
To find out what our students really thought about IL,their own skills, library resources and IL teaching
Mission Strategy
Visits to all faculties and departments Marketing 8 hours of free IL teaching at various stages of
academic studies
Survey of the scope of IL teaching First Year Students (FYS) Bachelors’ (B) Masters’ (M)
Self-assessment survey of students’ use of information resources and their own IL skills
Students’ feedback evaluation of the IL teaching
IL Teaching at University of Turku IL not compulsory (except for
1st Year Medicine Students)
The library in charge of IL teaching
Considerable differences between faculties, departments and subjects
Considerable differences in group sizes (1-144 in 2008)
Due to visits to faculties IL teaching requests are on the increase
IL Teaching
2005 2007
Teaching hours
375 517
Taught students
3448 5643
Scope of IL Teaching at MNS Faculty
FYS 62% (National average 91-100%) BSc 79% (National average 75-80%) MSc 15% (National average 15-20%)
Based on subject coverage, national average based on student numbers
71 hours of teaching during last academic year 150 hours needed to meet the target (8h per
student altogether)
The scope of IL teaching at MNS
Students’ Self-Assessment Survey on IL Skills
A pilot questionnaire on the Internet (Webropol), pre and post IL teaching
A total of 350 pre and 279 post replies Faculties of Humanities (HUM) Education (EDU) Social Sciences (SOC) Mathematics and Natural Sciences (MNS)
Results analyzed according to a year of studies, subject and faculty
Results of 1st Year Students (FYS) Overconfidence, ignorance and Googling roles
Use of Volter Library Cataloque increased noticeably In some areas teaching had no or negative effect
Nelli Portal (The National Electronic Library of Finland) was considered just one of the Internet’s search engines (have seen better…) or part of free Internet – muddy, fussy, confusing and difficult
However, students regarded having very good skills using Nelli Portal…
Questions
Excellent or Good
pre post
Skills in Author Search in Volter 73 95Skills using Volter 57 84Keyword Knowledge 45 77Skills in Keyword Searches 36 72
Skills using e-books 15 41
Use of Boolean operators 24 41
Skills using Nelli 14 41
Results of 2nd-3rd Year Students (B)
Insecurity skills only average or poor in most areas
Very low use of Boolean operators, E-books, abstract and fulltext databases and the Main Library (call slip requests) before teaching 56 % 2nd years and 58 % 3rd years had not used e-
books 37 % 2nd years and 35 % 3rd years had not used Nelli
Portal
44 % of 3rd year students had not used Boolean operators at all, still 28 % hadn’t used them after teaching…
Results of 2nd-3rd Year Students (B) cont. Teaching had a noticable impact on the use of e-resources
37 % had not used Nelli Portal at all before teaching, only 7 % after teaching
Huge effect on students’ awareness of subject-specific e-resources
Students have started using the e-resources but are not confident – they rate their own skills only average or poor in most areas (journal database searches, use of e-books, kowledge of subject-related resources) IL teaching mainly covers the introduction of e-resources but only scratches the surface of search strategies
E-books still not well used after teaching (36% not used)
Results of 4th-6th Year Students (M) Very good skills using Volter Library Catalogue
Big improvement in understanding and performing keyword searches and Boolean operators
Big impact on awareness and use of subject-specific resources
67 % are still not using either Search Alert Services or RefWorks/EndNote
Still 35%-40% had not used e-books or any databases (full text/abstract) before teaching and situation did hardly improve after teaching
Only 16 % new very well or well their subject specific resources, after teaching the number rose to 36%, ca 30% had not used the subject specific resources at all…
Skills using Nelli Portal still only good or average
Everybody had been using Volter Library Catalogue
Faculty Differences
Students' IL Skills by Faculties
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
pre T post T pre T post T pre T post T
Excellent/Good Skills Average Skills Fair/Poor Skills
HUM
MNS
EDU
SOC
Faculty Differences cont. IL Teaching had rather variable effect on students’ IL skills –
impact was greatest on HUM and MNS and less effective on EDU and SOC – is there a reason for it or is it just statistical bias?
Overestimation of own skills Varying research/study requirements Timing Insufficient teaching
HUM and SOC know Volter best MNS skills are best in Nelli environment EDU uses abstract databases (ERIC) more than the others SOC is well equipped in exploiting the paper resources in
the libraries MNS is very cognisant of its own subject specific resources
Subject differences
Subject differences among Mathematics and Science Faculty students
%
Skills in Using Nelli Portal
The impact of IL teaching on students’ skills in using Nelli, The National Electronic Library of Finland
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
%
Excellent Good Average Poor Not used
All students' skills in using Nelli Portal
Pre Teaching
Post Teaching
Skills in Using Nelli Portal
One of the interesting findings is the astonishing amount of 3rd (52 %) and 4th – 6th (38 %) year students not been using Nelli’s electronic resources at all before teaching -have to make an impact earlier
IL Skills of University of Turku Students
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Excellent Good Average Fair Poor
All students' IL-skills
Pre Teaching
Post Teaching
Over 50 % of the students consider having average IL skills
However,teaching did have an impact especially on good skills
Feedback Questionnaire Results 07-08 90 % students regarded teaching important or very important Importance grew the further the cycle the students were in
their studies
The Importance of IL Teaching (MNS)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Very Important Important Less Important Waste of Time
%
MNS 1stY
MNS B
MNS M
Feedback Questionnaire 2007-2008 524 feedback forms were collected and analyzed
between 2007-2008, here are some of the questions and results
Were there enough practical excercises? The further cycle the students are in the more hands-on
exercises are required ”Excercises, no powerpoint presentations”, ”Computers on”
Was the tuition of suitable duration? The higer stage the students are the the more IL-
teaching is required – 1st year reasonably satisfied with their 2-hour session but BA and MA clearly required much more tuition -”good stuff but too much packed into too little…so more of it! Otherwise OK”
Feedback Questionnaire 2007-2008 cont. How well did the IL-teaching fit into your
studies? Over 80 % were very satisfied or satisfied with the
timing
FYS felt that teaching given after January came too late, it should have taken place soon after Freshers’ week
the session might be the first and last tuition for quite a few students, even at Masters’ stage
Many frustrated students receive their only IL teaching at BA stage – “WHY HAVEN’T I BEEN TOLD OF THESE
BEFORE???” Better late than not at all - Motto of the question
Feedback Questionnaire 2007-2008 cont. Would you like to have more tuition?
The further cycle the students are in the more IL-teaching is appreciated and required
55% wanted more, only 12 % considered having no further tuition. 1st year students were not able to make up their minds but BA/MA were certain of the need of more tuition.
”More of it! Good stuff but too much packed into too little, so more time, more sessions, more one to one tuition, just more please! And make it compulsory for the 1st year…!
All the NO answers of MNS BA were from Physics – good reminder of the differences of each student group/department/discipline.
Conclusions
IL teaching is important to students
IL teaching has an impact on students’ Awareness of resources Use of resources IL-skills Knowledge of subject-specific resources
The further cycle the students are in their studies the more IL-teaching is appreciated and required and more hands-on exercises needed
Conclusions cont. Library has vital role in raising the awareness
of subject-specific resources Whose responsibility? Librarians have boarder view, academics more specific view Do academics know the resources well enough? Do we? Does it still come down to “unless the faculty are
information literate themselves, students will not be” (Young & Harmony 1999)???
1st year students’ confidence is not competence 1st year students very confident about their own skills,
don’t realize yet what research and academic study truely requires ” have used search engines before – piece of cake”
Compulsory tuition for FYS during the first semester – students’ own wish
IL Questionnaire improvements
More extensive attendance (pre teaching) Second questionnaire only to the 1st
questionnaire repliers Results sorted according to the cycle of
studies, not the year of studies Computerized analysis, now too time
consuming Some questions confusing, need changes More chocolate…
Contact Details
Jaana TaylersonMathematics and Natural Sciences LibraryUniversity of TurkuFI-20014 TURKU
FINLAND
Email:[email protected]:+358 2 333 5464
By Lydia Taylerson
References
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