scholarly journals Understanding Patterns of Library Use Among Undergraduate Students from Different Disciplines

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Collins ◽  
Graham Stone
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
User Research ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Library Resource ◽  
Library Use ◽  
Library Resources ◽  
Usage Patterns ◽  
High Level

Abstract Objective – To test whether routinely-generated library usage data could be linked with information about students to understand patterns of library use among students from different disciplines at the University of Huddersfield. This information is important for librarians seeking to demonstrate the value of the library, and to ensure that they are providing services which meet user needs. The study seeks to join two strands of library user research which until now have been kept rather separate – an interest in disciplinary differences in usage, and a methodology which involves large-scale routinely-generated data. Methods – The study uses anonymized data about individual students derived from two sources: routinely-generated data on various dimensions of physical and electronic library resource usage, and information from the student registry on the course studied by each student. Courses were aggregated at a subject and then disciplinary level. Kruskal-Wallis and Mann Whitney tests were used to identify statistically significant differences between the high-level disciplinary groups, and within each disciplinary group at the subject level. Results – The study identifies a number of statistically significant differences on various dimensions of usage between both high-level disciplinary groupings and lower subject-level groupings. In some cases, differences are not the same as those observed in earlier studies, reflecting distinctive usage patterns and differences in the way that disciplines or subjects are defined and organised. While music students at Huddersfield are heavy library users within the arts subject-level grouping arts students use library resources less than those in social science disciplines, contradicting findings from studies at other institutions, Computing and engineering students were relatively similar, although computing students were more likely to download PDFs, and engineering students were more likely to use the physical library. Conclusion – The technique introduced in this study represents an effective way of understanding distinctive usage patterns at an individual institution. There may be potential to aggregate findings across several institutions to help universities benchmark their own performance and usage; this would require a degree of collaboration and standardisation. This study found that students in certain disciplines at Huddersfield use the library in different ways to students in those same disciplines at other institutions. Further investigation is needed to understand exactly why these differences exist, but some hypotheses are offered.

scholarly journals Undergraduate Student Use of the Physical and Virtual Library Varies according to Academic Discipline

2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 129
Author(s):  
Megan Von Isenburg
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Virtual Library ◽  
College Of Agriculture ◽  
Class Standing ◽  
Library Use ◽  
Library Resources

A Review of: Bridges, L.M. (2008). Who is not using the library? A comparison of undergraduate academic disciplines and library use. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 8(2), 187-196. Objective – To determine differences in undergraduate students' use of the physical library and virtual library by academic disciplines. Design – Online multiple-choice survey followed by focus groups and secondary online survey with open-ended questions. Setting – Oregon State University (OSU), a land-grant university with over 19,000 students located in Corvallis, Oregon, United States. Subjects – A random sample of 22% (n = 3,227) of the undergraduate population (n = 14,443), drawn by the registrar's office. Distance education and students at branch campuses were not included. From this pool, 949 usable survey responses (29% of the sample) were collected. The respondent demographics proved to be reasonably equivalent to those of the total undergraduate population in terms of class standing (freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior) and academic discipline. Methods – The study consisted of three phases. In phase one, an email invitation with a link to the four-item multiple choice online survey was sent to students in the sample population. Results were analyzed using Pearson chi-square tests to determine goodness of fit between the following variables: class standing and library visits, class standing and virtual library use, academic college and library visits, and academic college and virtual library use. When significant dependence was detected, researchers examined relationships between the specific groups (e.g., freshman and sophomore) and library use, and also compared each group to one another using odds ratios and by constructing 95% confidence intervals. Phase two was intended to gather qualitative information from the 275 infrequent or non-users of the library in focus groups. However, researchers invited the 95 students in this group who had indicated a willingness to be contacted for further study, and only five students participated. The author therefore does not report on this limited data. In phase three, researchers invited the 95 students who had self-reported as infrequent or non-users of the library and who had indicated a willingness to be contacted for further study to complete an online survey consisting of 36 open-ended questions. 38 students responded. Much of the data for phase three is reported on in a separate research article (Vondracek, 2007). Main Results – Results from phase one are reported in detail: in response to the question of how often undergraduates visit the physical library, 24.6% visited several times a year, 29.6% visited several times a month, 34% visited several times a week, 7.7% visited once or more per day, and 4% reported that they did not visit at all. Response to how often undergraduate students use the online library resources or website from outside the library were: 37.7% use them several times a year, 32.8% use them several times a month, 12% used them several times a week, 1.3% used them once or more per day, and 16.2% reported that they did not use them at all. No significant relationships were found between class standing and visits to the physical library or class standing and virtual library use. Researchers determined a significant relationship between academic college and visits to the physical library (p=0.003): College of Agriculture students were significantly less likely to visit the library than students from the Colleges of Health and Human Sciences, Liberal Arts, and Sciences. Researchers also determined a significant relationship between academic college and virtual library use (p=0.008): students in the College of Engineering were significantly less likely to use the virtual library resources than students in the College of Liberal Arts. The survey from phase three of this study asked students further questions about their library use and relevant results are discussed in this article. Five students from the College of Agriculture responded to the survey and all five students noted that they study at home. When asked about where they go for help with research, three reported that they ask a friend or peer, one noted a professor and the fifth did not respond to the question. Four engineering students responded to this survey; when asked about where they carry out online research, two responded that they use Google, one responded that he/she uses the library, and the fourth noted that he/she uses a building on campus. Conclusion – This study determined that College of Agriculture students were less likely to use the physical library than their counterparts in the Colleges of Health and Human Sciences, Liberal Arts, and Sciences, and that College of Engineering students were less likely to use the virtual library resources than students in the College of Liberal Arts.

STEM undergraduate students: library use, perceptions and GPA

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jung Mi Scoulas
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Student Survey ◽  
Grade Point ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Stem Disciplines ◽  
Library Use ◽  
Library Resources ◽  
User Groups ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Online Library

PurposeThis study aims to examine if differences exist in undergraduate students' library use, perceptions and grade point average (GPA) among science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and non-STEM disciplines.Design/methodology/approachThe current study used data from the 2018 student survey. Among 2,277 students who completed the survey (response rate = 8%), only undergraduate students (n = 1,265) were selected for this study because the current study aims to examine the differences between STEM and non-STEM undergraduate students.FindingsThe findings from a Mann–Whitney U test revealed that STEM respondents perceived specific library resources (subject and course guide, library instructions and library workshops) as slightly less than non-STEM respondents. The results from ANOVA demonstrated that the mean scores in GPA for STEM respondents who never used online library, journals and databases were lower than respondents who used those library resources, regardless of STEM and non-STEM disciplines.Originality/valueRevisiting the data collected and analyzing specific user groups will be valuable to academic libraries because this study will provide academic librarians with a deeper understanding of specific user needs and perceptions of library resources and services.

scholarly journals Undergraduate Students Who Use Library Resources Are Also More Likely to Stay Enrolled

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 136
Author(s):  
Cari Merkley
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Data Set ◽  
First Semester ◽  
Retained Students ◽  
Socio Economic Status ◽  
Mature Students ◽  
Library Use ◽  
Library Resources ◽  
Student Enrolment

Objective – To determine if there is an association between library use and student retention. Design – Quantitative analysis. Setting – A large research university in Australia. Subjects – 6330 new undergraduate students. Methods – The researcher obtained a data set on all new undergraduate students registered at the institution in April 2010 from the student enrolment system. The data set included students’ identification number, age, gender, Australian postal code, and country of residence. Using the students’ identification numbers, the author then retrieved information from the library’s systems on the number of physical library items borrowed, and the number of logins to authenticated electronic library resources by this cohort at three points in the first semesters of 2010 and 2011. These three points in the semester fell after the course withdrawal date, mid-semester, and after exams. The author obtained additional data sets from the student enrolment system at the end of the first semester of 2010, and after the course withdrawal date and after exams in the first semester of 2011 to determine which students from the original sample were retained over the 18 month period. The researcher then compared library use data for students still enrolled at each date to those who had withdrawn from their studies. The researcher also coded students’ data according to age and socio-economic status to allow further analysis. All students in the sample were grouped into two age categories: students under 21 years of age, and mature students, which included all students aged 21 years and over. Those students with a permanent Australian address (5125) were coded as low, medium, or high socioeconomic status using the 2006 Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas. Postal codes were also used to determine if a student resided in close proximity to the university library in Western Australia, and could be expected to access the physical collection. Main Results – Students who withdrew by the end of their first semester in 2010 were more likely not to access online library resources at all (39% versus 20.4% of retained students). By the end of the first semester of 2011, retained students still showed higher use of library online resources. Over half of those leaving their studies did not login to library resources by the end of the first semester of their second year of study, compared to 17.6% of retained students. Borrowing rates for physical library items was very low among both retained students and those who withdrew from their studies in both years. The data did not demonstrate a strong association between a student’s socioeconomic status, library use, and their retention. The findings regarding age were more significant when it came to retention, with mature students more likely to withdraw from their studies by the end of their first semester than those under 21. In terms of their library use, retained mature students were more likely to borrow physical items from the library than younger students in both their first and second years of study. Conclusion – While students who remained enrolled over the 18 month period did demonstrate higher use of the library’s electronic and physical collections than those who withdrew, the low use of the library’s physical and electronic resources even by those retained undermines any conclusions that could be drawn about the positive associations between library use and retention. Mature students may benefit from targeted library supports, as their library use seems to be more positively associated with their retention than with younger students. Socio-economic status did not appear to play a major role in library use and retention, according to the study’s findings.

Factors affecting undergraduates’ selection of online library resources in academic tasks

2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 272-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soohyung Joo ◽  
Namjoo Choi
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Resource Selection ◽  
Ease Of Use ◽  
Resource Quality ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Multiple Factors ◽  
Library Resource ◽  
Library Resources ◽  
Online Library

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore multiple factors affecting online library resource selection by undergraduate students. Three dimensions of factors are investigated including usefulness and ease-of-use, resource quality, and individual differences. Design/methodology/approach – An instrument was developed to measure various aspect factors and online library resource use intention. A survey was administered to 332 undergraduate students. Quantitative analysis, including structural equation modeling, ANOVA, and t-tests, was used to statistically examine the effects of the identified 11 factors on the use intention of online library resources. Findings – The findings indicated that both usefulness and ease-of-use positively influenced the undergraduates’ use intention of online library resources. Also, five resource quality constructs – accessibility, credibility, coverage, currency, and format – were the determinants of online library resources use intention. Interestingly, the effect of accessibility was the strongest, while that of credibility was the weakest. In addition, this study found that familiarity with sources and use of good search skills had a significant effect on users’ use intention at the individual user level. Originality/value – This study is one of the few studies investigating multiple factors comprehensively that influence online library resource selection.

scholarly journals The Advanced Turbogenerator Project — A Total Technology Education Experience for Engineering Undergraduate Students

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. R. Pullen ◽  
A. W. Court ◽  
C. B. Besant
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Materials Science ◽  
Royal Academy ◽  
Engineering Science ◽  
Education Experience ◽  
High Level ◽  
Level Of Motivation ◽  
Generator Sets

The preparation of engineering students for industrial careers after graduating is a vital part of the education process at university. It is the responsibility of the university to teach sound foundations of engineering science but this on its own is not sufficient preparation. The subject of design has been identified as a valuable means by which engineering science can be applied at advanced levels but at the same time teach students skills which are necessary for successful careers in industry. Three years ago, five senior engineers from UK industry were appointed as Visiting Professors in Engineering Design with the support of the Royal Academy of Engineering. In was decided after discussions with academics at the college to undertake a project entitled the Advanced Turbogenerator project (ATG). The project was to be conducted by a large team of undergraduates with the aim of producing a design and finally an actual small gas turbine of 50 kW output. Applications for the small gas turbine include the highly topical hybrid vehicle propulsion powertrain and compact low emissions generator sets. The paper describes the progress made in the project in two years which has involved over 30 final year engineering students in the Mechanical, Electrical, Aeronautical and Materials Science Departments. The students have found the project very challenging but have experienced an unusually high level of motivation and commitment to the work. They have been provided with state of the art software and have demonstrated that realistic designs can be produced with the guidance of experienced gas turbine engineers. The project has been reviewed by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and both have expressed the highest support for the programme. It is intended to continue the project next year with the intention of turning the design into prototype hardware.

scholarly journals Multiple Factors Influence Undergraduates’ Intent to Use Online Library Resources

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 235
Author(s):  
Eamon C Tewell
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Resource Selection ◽  
Ease Of Use ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Multiple Factors ◽  
Library Resource ◽  
Library Resources ◽  
Intent To Use ◽  
Online Library ◽  
Selection Of

A Review of: Joo, S., & Choi, N. (2015). Factors affecting undergraduates’ selection of online library resources in academic tasks. Library Hi Tech, 33(2), 272-291. doi: 10.1108/LHT-01-2015-0008 Objective – To investigate multiple factors that may affect undergraduate students’ selection of online library resources. Usefulness and ease of use, quality, and user differences were each explored as factors influencing undergraduates’ use intention. Design – Survey questionnaire. Setting – A state university located in the United States of America. Subjects – 332 randomly selected undergraduate students. Methods – A survey designed to measure the intent to utilize online library resources was administered to an undergraduate population. The results, including 11 factors of use intention, were analyzed quantitatively using inferential statistics such as structural equation modeling, multiple regression, t-tests, ANOVAs, and linear regression. Main Results – The factors of usefulness and ease of use were reported to have a positive relationship with undergraduates’ intent to use online library resources (regression weights = 0.473 and 0.408, p < 0.01). Respondents who answered that they were “very or extremely familiar” with online library resources had higher use intention of these sources (mean = 6.17) than other groups moderately or not at all familiar (mean = 5.74 and 4.95, respectively). Experience in a library instruction program was not found to influence use intention (t = -0.368, p > 0.05). Conclusions – The authors conclude that multiple factors influence online library resource selection behavior among undergraduates. The results indicate that usefulness and ease of use are important factors in use intention. The effect of “resource quality” factors, indicated by credibility, format, accessibility, currency, and coverage, suggested that all five factors positively impact use intention. Accessibility is most likely to increase the likelihood of online library resource selection while the credibility of a source has the weakest effect on selection. Familiarity with online library resources and self-reported strong search skills also positively influenced use intention.

scholarly journals Orderliness predicts academic performance: behavioural analysis on campus lifestyle

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (146) ◽  
pp. 20180210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Cao ◽  
Jian Gao ◽  
Defu Lian ◽  
Zhihai Rong ◽  
Jiatu Shi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Academic Performance ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Digital Data ◽  
Effective Interventions ◽  
Major Factors ◽  
High Level ◽  
Education Administrators

Quantitative understanding of relationships between students' behavioural patterns and academic performances is a significant step towards personalized education. In contrast to previous studies that were mainly based on questionnaire surveys, recent literature suggests that unobtrusive digital data bring us unprecedented opportunities to study students' lifestyles in the campus. In this paper, we collect behavioural records from undergraduate students' ( N = 18 960) smart cards and propose two high-level behavioural characters, orderliness and diligence. The former is a novel entropy-based metric that measures the regularity of campus daily life, which is estimated here based on temporal records of taking showers and having meals. Empirical analyses on such large-scale unobtrusive behavioural data demonstrate that academic performance (GPA) is significantly correlated with orderliness. Furthermore, we show that orderliness is an important feature to predict academic performance, which improves the prediction accuracy even in the presence of students' diligence. Based on these analyses, education administrators could quantitatively understand the major factors leading to excellent or poor performance, detect undesirable abnormal behaviours in time and thus implement effective interventions to better guide students' campus lives at an early stage when necessary.

scholarly journals Study to assess internet usage patterns and prevalence of internet addiction among medical and engineering students of Bengaluru city

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 2331
Author(s):  
Sunil Kumar D. R. ◽  
Ipsita Debata
Keyword(s):  
Internet Addiction ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Internet Use ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Epidemiological Studies ◽  
Internet Usage ◽  
Real Problem ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Common Location ◽  
Usage Patterns

Background: Internet has become today, one of the most powerful tools for everybody, playing major roles in the life of adolescents. In tandem with the splurge in access to the Internet globally, with the rise of new-generation gadgets, the risk of “internet addiction” is emerging as a significant behavioral addiction pandemic to be tackled worldwide.Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out among 200 medical and engineering students, with 100 selected from each course. Data on internet usage patterns was collected by administering a semi-structured pre-tested questionnaire. Prevalence of internet addiction was estimated by using Young’s internet addiction scale.Results: The mean age of the participants was 18.85±0.197 years, among which 52% were females and 48% were males. While assessing internet usage patterns, it was found that the frequency of years of internet usage for 1-5 years was 80% (160) and that of internet use per day for 0-2 hours was 50.5% (101). Both these factors were significantly associated with internet addiction. Most common location of internet access was hostel, i.e. 51.5% (103). 93.5% (187) of students used Mobile phones and social media was found to be the main purpose for internet use which was 60% (120). Totally 67% (134) of medical and engineering students had internet addiction.Conclusions: The present study highlights the vulnerability of professional college students for internet addiction. Large scale epidemiological studies should be undertaken to assess the real problem and thereby take appropriate steps to tackle the growing problem. 

Undergraduate research support with optical character recognition apps

2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 336-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Hahn
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Mobile Application ◽  
Character Recognition ◽  
Optical Character Recognition ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Formative Evaluation ◽  
Application Development ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Optical Character ◽  
Library Resources

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report results of a formative usability study that investigated first-year student use of an optical character recognition (OCR) mobile application (app) designed to help students find resources for course assignments. The app uses textual content from the assignment sheet to suggest relevant library resources of which students may not be aware. Design/methodology/approach – Formative evaluation data are collected to inform the production level version of the mobile application and to understand student use models and requirements for OCR software in mobile applications. Findings – Mobile OCR apps are helpful for undergraduate students searching known titles of books, general subject areas or searching for help guide content developed by the library. The results section details how student feedback shaped the next iteration of the app for integration as a Minrva module. Research limitations/implications – This usability paper is not a large-scale quantitative study, but seeks to provide deep qualitative research data for the specific mobile interface studied, the Text-shot prototype. Practical implications – The OCR application is designed to help students learn about availability of library resources based on scanning (e.g. taking a picture, or “Text-shot”) of an assignment sheet, a course syllabus or other course-related handouts. Originality/value – This study contributes a new area of application development for libraries, with research methods that are useful for other mobile development studies.

scholarly journals Library resources, student success and the distance-learning university

2018 ◽  
Vol 119 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 77-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Nurse ◽  
Kirsty Baker ◽  
Anne Gambles
Keyword(s):  
Distance Learning ◽  
Student Success ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Library Resource ◽  
Library Resources ◽  
Resource Data ◽  
Online Library

Purpose Research at the Open University Library Services has been investigating the relationship between access to online library resources and student success. The purpose of this study/paper is to help to understand whether there is a similar relationship at a distance-learning university to that found in other institutions. Design/methodology/approach A small library data project was established to investigate this area. The study analysed online library resource data from access logs from the EZproxy and OpenAthens systems. A data set of 1.7 million online resource accesses was combined with student success data for around 90,000 undergraduate students and a series of analyses undertaken. Findings The study found a pattern where students who are more successful are accessing more library resources. A chi-square test indicated a statistically significant association between library resource accesses and module result, while an ANOVA test suggests a medium-sized effect. The study also found that 152 (76 per cent) of the 199 modules had a small, medium or large positive correlation between student success, measured by the overall assessment score, and online library resource accesses. Originality/value This study builds on evidence that there is a relationship between library use and student success by showing that this relationship extends to the setting of a non-traditional, innovative library service supporting part-time distance learners.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document