Student Survey 2003

1
Student Survey2003
2
Table of Contents
Introduction 2 Methods 3 The
Sample 4 Objectives 5 Demographics
7 Use of Electronic Resources for
Coursework 11 Advantages and Disadvantages of
Using Electronic Resources 25 Evaluation of
Electronic Resources 31 Use of
Library Resources
35 Conclusions 41
3
Introduction
The Electronic Publishing Initiative at
Columbia (EPIC) is conducting a series of
interviews, focus groups, and surveys as part of
a comprehensive research program to examine the
impact of electronic resources on the scholarly
communication process. This includes examining
the effect of electronic resources on publishers
of scholarly materials, academic libraries,
information technology departments at
institutions of higher education, college
faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate
students. The study reported here examines
the use and effects of electronic resources on
college undergraduate and graduate students.
4
Methods

• A 25 minute online survey of college students was
  conducted in the Spring and Fall 2003 semesters.
• E-mail invitations were sent to students in the
  fields of Political Science, International
  Affairs and Earth/Environmental Sciences at 4
  year colleges and universities across the United
  States. We focused on these particular
  disciplines because two of EPICs projects were
  created for scholars in these disciplines
  (Columbia International Affairs Online for
  International Affairs and Earthscape for the
  Earth/Environmental Sciences.) Political Science
  undergraduate majors were included because most
  colleges do not have an undergraduate
  International Affairs major. Therefore, it is the
  Political Science undergraduate majors that
  represent the undergraduate population that uses
  CIAO.
• The overall response rate to this survey was 8.
  Of those who responded, 1233 individuals met our
  inclusion criteria. Inclusion criteria stipulated
  respondents be a graduate or undergraduate
  student at a 4-year liberal arts college,
  masters college or university, or
  doctoral/research university, specializing in the
  field of Political Science, International Affairs
  or Earth/Environmental Science.

5
The Sample
The original sample reflected the underlying
distribution of students in four year liberal
arts colleges and universities for gender, based
on the last year of data available (1999).
Weighting factors were used to match the sample
to the population for control of school (public
vs. private), and level in school (graduate vs.
undergraduate) (1999, U.S. Department of
Education, National Center for Education
Statistics). This means that the sample matches
the national demographics for undergraduate and
graduate students in 4-year colleges and
universities on gender, control of school
attended, and level in school. We also
distributed discipline so that it was represented
as 50 Political Science/International Affairs
and 50 Earth/Environmental Sciences. The
findings from this study indicate general trends
among undergraduate and graduate students, and
may not necessarily be representative of every
individuals experience. Further, this sample is
limited to students in the fields of Political
Science, International Affairs, and Earth
Sciences. The findings may not be generalizable
to students in other fields.
6
Objectives

• The objectives of this study were to
• Gain insights into how students are using
  electronic resources in their academic work
• Gain insights into the perceived benefits and
  disadvantages of electronic resources
• Learn how students perceive electronic resources
  as affecting their scholarship
• Examine differences in use of electronic
  resources based on level in school, type of
  discipline, and type of institution

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How to Read The Slides in This Presentation

• On each slide, the actual survey question is
  listed in the bottom left corner of the slide.
• The N that is listed under the title of the
  slide indicates the number of respondents who
  answered a particular question on the survey.
• The text under the graphs explain the responses
  and comparisons shown in the graph. On some
  slides, bars on the graph are added together when
  percentages are cited in the text. For example
  the text may list the percentage who agreed
  with a certain statement. This percentage is
  comprise of those who indicated that they either
  strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement.
• Some slides have a note in the bottom left hand
  corner stating that All of the differences on
  this chart are statistically significant. This
  indicates that statistical analyses were
  conducted and the two groups being compared
  differ from each other at the .05 level of
  statistical significance testing on all of the
  items listed.

8
Demographics
9
Grade Level and MajorN1233

• Level in school was weighted to match the ratio
  of undergraduate students to graduate students
  within the population of students at 4-year
  colleges and research/doctoral universities
  nationwide.
• Major field of study was weighted so that each
  discipline represented 50 of the sample.

10
Type of Institution N1233

• The majority of respondents were from
  Doctoral/Research Universities (81.9). Control
  of institution (public vs. private) was weighted
  to match the underlying distribution within the
  population of students at 4-year colleges and
  doctoral/research universities.

11
Gender and Age N1233

• Slightly more than half of the respondents were
  Female (55.1).
• The majority of respondents were 30 years old or
  younger (93.7).

12
Use of Electronic Resources for Coursework
13
Frequency of Use and Proficiency with Electronic
Resources N1233

• Electronic resources are heavily used among
  students. More than half of respondents use
  electronic resources for coursework everyday
  (53.4). Only 1.5 use electronic resources for
  coursework once a month or less.
• Virtually all of the respondents considered
  themselves at least somewhat proficient (97.9)
  with electronic resources.

How often would you say you use electronic
resources (excluding e-mail) for school purposes?
14
Use of Electronic Resources for CourseworkN1233

• 99 of respondents use electronic resources for
  coursework. Researching an assignment or
  research/term paper (96.1) and looking up
  literature on a particular topic (84.7) were the
  most common uses for electronic resources for
  coursework.

What do you use electronic resources for in your
coursework?
15
Main Source for Learning about Electronic
ResourcesN1225

• Students learn about school related electronic
  resources primarily through their library website
  (31.5) and through their professors (27.1).
  Internet search engines (13.7) do not play a
  large role in informing students about academic
  electronic databases.

What is your main source for learning about
school-related electronic resources? (Asked
only of those respondents who use electronic
resources for their coursework)
16
Types of Resources Students Depend OnN1225
Means 3.50 3.46 3.33 2.86 2.43 2.26 2.08

• Respondents were far more dependent on electronic
  resources than print resources for their
  coursework. Respondents said they were most
  dependent on the World Wide Web. E-mail and
  library sponsored electronic databases of their
  own school were other electronic resources that
  they relied heavily on.

How dependent are you on the following types of
electronic resources for your coursework? (Asked
only of those respondents who use electronic
resources for their coursework)
17
Dependence on Types of Resources by Grade Level
(Mean Rating)N1225

• Undergraduate students are more likely than
  graduate students to use non-library sponsored
  web resources, while graduate students are more
  likely to use library sponsored electronic and
  print resources.

How dependent are you on the following types of
electronic resources for your coursework? (Asked
only of those respondents who use electronic
resources for their coursework) All of the
differences on this chart are statistically
significant
18
Dependence on Various Types of WebsitesN1225
Means 3.15 3.06 2.97 2.86 2.76

• When asked specifically about types of websites
  they depend on for coursework, respondents
  reported they were most dependent on the library
  portal of their school, followed closely by
  government or organizational websites.

How dependent are you on the following types of
web sites for your coursework? (Asked only of
those respondents who use electronic resources
for their coursework)
19
Dependence on Types of Websites by Grade Level
(Mean Ratings)N1225

• Graduate students were more dependent than
  undergraduate students on the library portal and
  journal websites for their coursework.
• Undergraduate students were more dependent on
  online newspapers than graduate students.

How dependent are you on the following types of
web sites for your coursework? (Asked only of
those respondents who use electronic resources
for their coursework) All of the differences on
this chart are statistically significant
20
Use of Internet Search Vs. Library DatabaseN1225

• When going online to do work for a course
  students are more likely to use an Internet
  search engine (46.5) than to go to a library
  database (21.9). Almost 1/3 of the students
  report that they use both methods equally.

When doing work online for one of your classes,
do you typically do a general Internet search or
use library sponsored electronic
resources? (Asked only of respondents who use
electronic resources for their coursework)
21
First Source Used When Writing a Research or
Term PaperN1207

• However, when asked specifically about writing a
  research/term paper, the source most students
  turn to first is a library sponsored electronic
  resource (37.6) followed closely by students who
  use an Internet search engine (32.7) first. This
  indicates that for general assignments, students
  are more likely to turn to the Internet, but for
  in-depth research assignments, they are more
  somewhat more likely to turn to library sponsored
  electronic resources.

When writing a research/term paper, what is the
first source you turn to? (Asked only of those
respondents who have written a term paper that
required citation of resources used in writing
the paper)
22
Types of Sources Cited in Last Research/Term
Paper WrittenN1207

• Books and journals are still cited by most
  students when writing a term paper, however the
  number of students citing websites does not lag
  far behind. Books and Journals were each cited by
  more than three-quarters of respondents as types
  of resources cited in the bibliography of their
  last research/term paper (84.8 and 77.8
  respectively), while websites were cited by 68.8
  of the students.

Thinking about the LAST research/term paper you
wrote, what types of resources did you cite in
your bibliography? (Asked only of those
respondents who have written a term paper that
required citation of resources used in writing
the paper)
23
Use of Electronic Resources by Professors for
CoursesN1225

• Students are not the only ones using electronic
  resources for their courses. Electronic resources
  also appear to be widely used by professors for
  the courses they teach. The most common ways
  electronic resources are used include directing
  students to supplementary materials online, using
  a course website, placing course materials online
  for students to retrieve, and using online
  materials in addition to course textbooks. Many
  students also report that one or more of their
  professors use online programs (such as
  Blackboard), and almost a third of the students
  report that at least one of their classes use
  online materials in place of textbooks.

In which of the following ways do your professors
use electronic resources for their
courses (Asked only of respondents who use
electronic resources for their coursework)
24
Importance and Satisfaction With Electronic
Resources UsedN1162

• Respondents were asked to rate the importance of
  several features of electronic resources, along
  with their satisfaction with these features in
  the electronic resources they use. The largest
  disparities in importance and satisfaction are
  with the availability of full text, ease of
  navigation and search capabilities of database.
  In each case the respondents rate their
  satisfaction with the feature significantly lower
  than the importance of the feature. Features
  where satisfaction outshone importance were the
  reputation of the provider of the electronic
  resource, having text in preserved format, the
  ability to tell if a source was peer reviewed,
  and the quality of images/graphics.

Please rate how important the following qualities
of online databases are to you In general, how
satisfied are you with the following qualities of
the online databases you currently use? (Asked
only of those respondents who have used online
databases)
25
Overall Effect of Electronic Resources on your
CourseworkN1225

• The majority of respondents believe that
  electronic resources have had a positive impact
  overall on their coursework.

Overall, how positively or negatively have
electronic resources (not including e-mail)
affected the quality of your course work? (Asked
only of respondents who use electronic resources
for their coursework)
26
Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Electronic
Resources
27
Advantages of Electronic ResourcesN1225
Means 4.61 4.50 4.54 4.14 4.00 3.87 3.48

• Electronic resources allow students to work from
  a location outside the library, save them time,
  give them greater access to current information,
  and allow them to get more information with less
  effort.

Please indicate how much you agree or disagree
with each statement below (Asked only of those
respondents who use electronic resources for
their coursework)
28
Disadvantages of Electronic ResourcesN1225
Means 4.03 3.82 3.73 3.47 3.37 3.30 3.03

• Search engines appeared to be a major difficulty
  in the use of electronic resources. 80.2 of
  respondents agreed that search engines were not
  as precise as they would like them to be and
  67.3 agreed that search engines are not as
  thorough as they would like them to be.
• Further, 71 agree that electronic resources
  increase their need to separate out the reliable
  from unreliable information, while half of the
  respondents report difficulty making these
  judgments (next graph).

Please indicate how much you agree or disagree
with each statement below (Asked only of those
respondents who use electronic resources for
their coursework)
29
Disadvantages of Electronic Resources
(contd)N1225
Means 3.23 3.30 3.22 2.73 2.83 3.06 2.21

• More than half of the respondents somewhat or
  strongly agree that electronic resources can
  result in an overload of information (previous
  slide), and almost half of the respondents agree
  that this overload of information can be
  overwhelming for them. 1/3 of respondents admit
  they tend to go no further than electronic
  resources when looking for information, and 1/5
  of respondents agree that their use of electronic
  resources has gone as far as to keep them from
  learning how to use the physical library.

Please indicate how much you agree or disagree
with each statement below (Asked only of those
respondents who use electronic resources for
their coursework)
30
Disadvantages of Electronic Resources by Grade
Level (Mean Rating)N1225

• Undergraduate students seem to have more
  difficulties with electronic resources than
  graduate students, particularly with determining
  the quality of information. Undergraduates are
  also more likely to put things off until the last
  minute and to go no further than electronic
  resources for information.

Please indicate how much you agree or disagree
with each statement below (Asked only of those
respondents who use electronic resources for
their coursework) All of the differences on this
chart are statistically significant
31
Electronic Resources and Plagiarism
N1225
N1225
N488

• Slightly more than one-third of respondents said
  they had copied text from a website and pasted it
  into their own assignment/research paper (39.9).
  However, 81.7 of these respondents said they
  cited the copied text in the paper.
• Less than one percent of respondents said they
  had purchased a paper online to hand in for a
  class assignment (0.4).

Have you ever purchased a term/research paper
online to hand in for class? (Asked only of those
respondents who use electronic resources for
their coursework) Have you ever copied text from
a website and pasted it into your own paper for a
class assignment/research paper? (Asked only of
those respondents who use electronic resources
for their coursework) If you responded yes to
the above question, did you cite it in your term
paper? (Asked only of those respondents who have
copied text from a website and pasted it into
their own paper)
32
Evaluation of Electronic Resources
33
Steps Taken To Evaluate Electronic ResourcesN917

• 74.9 of respondents said they take steps to
  evaluate the trustworthiness of online
  information they are using for coursework.
• Of those who do take steps to evaluate electronic
  resources, slightly more than half rely on the
  reputation of the source. 20.6 of respondents
  cross-check the information found online with
  another source and 18.6 rely on the author when
  determining the reliability of online information.

How do you evaluate online information for use in
your coursework? (Asked only of those respondents
who said they take steps to evaluate
trustworthiness of online formation)
34
Instruction on the Evaluation of Electronic
ResourcesN1225

• Almost half of the respondents have not received
  any formal instruction on how to evaluate
  electronic resources (49.5).
• Of those who have receive instruction, most of
  them received it from a professor or TA.

As a college student, have you received any
formal instruction in how to evaluate the quality
of online information? (Asked only of those
respondents who use electronic resources for
their coursework)
35
Benefits of a Course on Evaluating Electronic
Resources
How beneficial do you think a course like this
would be? N607
How beneficial was this course? N561

• Of those who had not received any instruction in
  the evaluation of electronic resources, the vast
  majority (82) thought that this instruction
  would be beneficial.
• Of those who had received instruction in the
  evaluation of electronic resources, 93 thought
  it had been useful.

36
Use of Library Resources
37
Dependence on Library ResourcesN1225
Means 3.21 3.10 3.01 2.57 2.27 2.25 1.88 1
.78 1.86

• Students are almost as dependent on the physical
  library (75.8) as they are on the librarys
  website to retrieve books and articles (81.5).
  However, dependence on the online card catalogue
  (77) is much higher than dependence on the
  physical library for the card catalogue (21).

How dependent are you on the following for your
coursework? (Asked only of those respondents who
use electronic resources for their coursework)
38
Dependence on Library Resources by Grade Level
(Mean Rating)N1225

• Undergraduate and graduate students are
  differentially dependent on the librarys
  services. Graduate students are more dependent on
  the librarys portal to retrieve articles or
  books from electronic databases, the online card
  catalogue, for interlibrary loan and they are
  dependent on the physical library to retrieve
  articles or books as well as for interlibrary
  loan.
• Undergraduate students are more dependent than
  graduate students on the physical library as a
  place to study, for Internet access, for the card
  catalogue, and for access to word processing
  facilities.

How dependent are you on the following for your
coursework? (Asked only of those respondents who
use electronic resources for their
coursework) All of the differences on this chart
are statistically significant
39
Frequency of Physical Library UseN1225

• The majority of respondents use the physical
  library more than once a month (67.7).
• 3.2 of respondents said they never use the
  physical library.

How often do you use the physical library at your
school? (Asked only of those respondents who said
they use electronic resources for their
coursework)
40
Frequency of Foregoing Information Rather than
Going to the Physical Library to Retrieve
itN1225

• Student use of electronic resources often leads
  them to settle for information that is available
  online even though better materials might be
  available at the library. About 20 of the
  students say they often or always settle for
  information that is available remotely rather
  than going to the physical library to retrieve
  what they would really like. Another 36 say they
  do this sometimes.

When an article, book, or other resource is not
available online, how often do you choose to
forgo the resource rather than going to the
physical library to retrieve it? (Asked only of
respondents who use electronic resources for
their coursework)
41
Preference of Print vs. Electronic
ResourcesN1225

• More than half of the respondents said their
  preference for print or electronic resources
  depends on the situation (55.5). Slightly more
  than one quarter prefer electronic resources and
  18.4 prefer print resources. Print is preferred
  by some because it is easier to read, it is
  portable, you can take notes on it, it is easy to
  evaluate if it is a reliable source, and it is
  easy to browse through. Electronic resources are
  preferred by some because they are easy to
  access, easy to use, they save time, and they
  make it easy to search for information. Print is
  preferred for situations where the material is
  long or dense, and the reader has to fully
  comprehend the material. Electronic resources are
  preferred for situations where the reader is
  obtaining supplementary or background materials,
  for current events materials, or when working on
  short papers/homework assignments.

Do you prefer print or electronic
resources? (Asked only of those respondents who
use electronic resources for their coursework)
42
Conclusions

• Electronic resources have become the main tool
  for students information gathering.
• Undergraduate students in particular are heavily
  dependent on the World Wide Web. Graduate
  students are more likely to report a dependence
  on library sponsored electronic resources.
• Electronic resources are seen as providing
  convenience by letting students work from their
  home or residence hall, and by saving them time.
• Electronic resources increase the need for
  students to separate out the reliable from
  unreliable information, which students have
  difficulty doing.

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Conclusions (contd)

• Formal instruction on how to evaluate electronic
  resources would be beneficial to most students.
• The physical library is still an important
  destination for students. Both undergraduate and
  graduate students use the physical library to
  retrieve articles and books. Undergraduates are
  more likely to use the library as a study space,
  for the computing facilities, or for Internet
  access. Graduate students are more likely than
  undergraduates to use it for interlibrary loan.
• Future efforts could focus on increasing access
  to full text materials, and improving navigation
  and search capabilities in order to better meet
  students needs.