Radford University: 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

✓ 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)

(No) Instruction

✓ Instruction: Games

(No) Instruction: One Shot

(No) Instruction: Course Embedded

(No) 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

(No) Social Sciences

(No) 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

(No) English Composition

✓ General Education

(No) Information Literacy Credit Course

(No) Other (please describe)

✓ Assessment Office

(No) Institutional Research

(No) Teaching Faculty

(No) Writing Center

(No) Information/Academic Technology

✓ Student Affairs

(No) Campus Administrator

(No) Library Administrator

✓ Other Librarian

(No) Other (please describe)

✓ Survey

(No) Interviews

(No) Focus Group(s)

✓ Observation

(No) Pre/Post Test

✓ Rubric

(No) Other (please describe)

(No) Student Portfolio

(No) Research Paper/Project

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

✓ Other (please describe)

Completed survey from each student participant.

(No) Test Scores

(No) GPA

(No) Degree Completion Rate

(No) Retention Rate

✓ Other (please describe)

Observations and reflections of the Instruction Librarian who conducted each session.

• 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. •How does the project align with your institution’s priorities and needs?

   RU’s current priority is improving student retention (re-enrollment) and success (GPA and graduation).

   •Why did you choose the outcome and library factor as areas to examine?

   Our UNIV100 library games are designed to address freshman students’ information confidence. Low student information confidence (aka, library anxiety) is a known obstacle to the use of the library and its resources. Frequent and effective use of the library is in turn a known factor in student success.

   •What was the project’s primary inquiry question?

   How effective were the library’s UNIV100 games in improving student information confidence?

   •Why was the team composition appropriate?

   Yes. Each member represented a stakeholder in the UNIV100 freshman orientation program, and all have an interest in assessing its effectiveness in student success and retention.
   

• 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. •What are the significant contributions of your project?

   The library games can be assessed in a way that is meaningful to the stakeholders both within and outside of the library.

   •What was learned about assessing the library’s impact on student learning and success?

   As primarily a support unit, the library’s impact is often indirect and periodic, making it difficult to tease out.

   •What was learned about creating or contributing to a culture of assessment on campus?

   The renewed importance of building and maintaining cooperative relationships with stakeholders across campus in order to educate them about the role the library plays in student learning, success, and retention.

   •What, if any, are the significant findings of your project?

   Both of the library games have a positive impact on the participating students’ information confidence.

• 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. •What will you change as a result of what you learned (– e.g., institutional activities, library functions or practices, personal/professional practice, other)?

   The assessment method for the library games will be refined both to improve its statistical attributes (e.g., power, reliability and validity) as well as its alignment with the new and evolving university assessment requirements.

   •How does this project contribute to current, past, or future assessment activities on your campus?

   It contributes to the library’s reputation as an active, responsible and reliable player in the university’s growing assessment efforts. It signals a move from intra-library assessment of CORE (i.e., Gen Ed) library instruction (over 60% of all our instruction) to one tied more closely to university goals and assessment efforts.

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

1. Team Leader contact information:

   Eric Ackermann
   Head, Reference Services and Library Assessment
   McConnell Library, Radford University
   egackerma@radford.edu
   540.831.5488

The Impact of Library Games on the Information Confidence of UNIV100 Freshmen

After ten years of use in the UNIV100 Freshman Orientation course, does the library game positively impact a student’s information confidence? If so, is the Library Challenge Game or the Mobile Scavenger Hunt the most effective? Information confidence is the ability to overcome one’s reluctance to use library services and resources, known to affect a student's academic success.