College of Southern Nevada: Project Description

(No) Student Learning: Assignment

(No) Student Learning: Course

(No) Student Learning: Major

(No) Student Learning: Degree

(No) Student Engagement

✓ Student Success

(No) Academic Intimacy/Rapport

(No) Enrollment

(No) Retention

(No) Completion

(No) Graduation

(No) Articulation

(No) Graduates' Career Success

(No) Testing (e.g., GRE, MCAT, LSAT, CAAP, CLA, MAPP)

(No) Other (please describe)

✓ Instruction

(No) Instruction: Games

✓ Instruction: One Shot

✓ Instruction: Course Embedded

✓ Instruction: Self-Paced Tutorials

(No) Reference

(No) Educational Role (other than reference or instruction)

(No) Space, Physical

(No) Discovery (library resources integrated in institutional web and other information portals)

(No) Discovery (library resource guides)

(No) Discovery (from preferred user starting points)

(No) Collections (quality, depth, diversity, format or currency)

(No) Personnel (number and quality)

(No) Other (please describe)

✓ Undergraduate

(No) Graduate

(No) Incoming

(No) Graduating

(No) Pre-College/Developmental/Basic Skills

(No) Other (please describe)

(No) Arts

(No) Humanities

✓ Social Sciences

✓ Natural Sciences (i.e., space, earth, life, chemistry or physics)

(No) Formal Sciences (i.e., computer science, logic, mathematics, statistics or systems science)

(No) Professions/Applied Sciences

✓ English Composition

✓ General Education

(No) Information Literacy Credit Course

(No) Other (please describe)

(No) Assessment Office

✓ Institutional Research

✓ Teaching Faculty

(No) Writing Center

(No) Information/Academic Technology

(No) Student Affairs

(No) Campus Administrator

(No) Library Administrator

✓ Other Librarian

(No) Other (please describe)

(No) Survey

(No) Interviews

(No) Focus Group(s)

(No) Observation

✓ Pre/Post Test

(No) Rubric

(No) Other (please describe)

(No) Student Portfolio

(No) Research Paper/Project

(No) Class Assignment (other than research paper/project)

(No) Other (please describe)

✓ Test Scores

✓ GPA

(No) Degree Completion Rate

(No) Retention Rate

(No) Other (please describe)

• How does the project align with your institution’s priorities and needs?
• Why did you choose the outcome and library factor as areas to examine?
• Why was the team composition appropriate?

1. This project’s goal is to demonstrate the Library instruction program's value within the institutional context of student success as defined by performance based funding. It seeks to answer three interrelated questions: 1) Does the instruction program, as a whole, impact student success outcomes? 2) How do the five types of instruction the Library provides: general orientations, drop-in workshops, online tutorials, assignment integrated, and the embedded librarian program respectively impact these outcomes? 3) What contributes to student success: information literacy skills, attitudes, or confidence? To answer these questions, we assembled a team of experts in library instruction, survey design, and student success; and teaching faculty who use and advocate for the types of library instruction analyzed. This team developed and employed a pre/post-test incorporating information literacy, attitudes conducive to academic success, and academic confidence-related questions, then indexed these variables in relation to course grades, semester GPA, and other student success indicators.

• What are the significant contributions of your project?
• What was learned about assessing the library’s impact on student learning and success?
• What was learned about creating or contributing to a culture of assessment on campus?
• What, if any, are the significant findings of your project?

1. From this project, we learned that a holistic approach, incorporating information literacy, attitudes toward research, and academic confidence is needed to get a more complete picture of the library instruction program's impact on student success. Ultimately, the project's impact will be seen, over time, as we make and assess changes to the instruction program based on its results. These results are encompassed in the project's most important findings: 1) Receiving any type of library instruction positively correlates with a student’s course grade; 2) The academic confidence and institutional connectedness students feel after receiving library instruction positively correlates with course and semester grades; 3) Learning general information literacy concepts is not significant, in terms of student success outcomes, for most library instruction types; and 4) The more integrated library instruction is with course content, the greater are the correlations to student success outcomes.

• What will you change as a result of what you learned (– e.g., institutional activities, library functions or practices, personal/professional practice, other)?
• How does this project contribute to current, past, or future assessment activities on your campus?

1. This project facilitated a process in which participating teaching faculty and librarians have become advocates for evidence-based changes to how we individually and collectively approach library instruction. Concomitantly, it has provided a tremendous professional development opportunity, enabling librarian team members to develop skills we will apply to ongoing efforts to build a Library and campus-wide assessment culture. Recommended changes to library instruction practices, based on the project’s results, include: 1) Measuring success in assignment integrated instruction by course-specific criteria or academic confidence; 2) Encouraging teaching faculty and librarians to use assignment integrated or embedded librarian instruction; 3) Making Research 101, CSN’s online information literacy tutorial, a required, graded assignment in key courses across the curriculum; 4) Continuing to offer drop-in workshops while encouraging faculty to use them in conjunction with a research assignment; and 5) Phasing out general library orientations as they have no measurable impact on student success indicators.

Please list any articles published, presentations given, URL of project website, and team leader contact details.

1. Team leader: Ted Chodock
   Phone: 702-651-5509
   Email: ted.chodock@csn.edu