The ability of the librarian to work individually with students at the Reference Desk is a critical “teachable moment”. shows that one-on-one instruction remains effective, especially in familiarizing the student with useful access to print and online resources,
The Reference Department provides assistance to students in accessing information whether in print format or online. We help our students develop information literacy skills that not only serve their immediate research needs but also prepare them for ACP pathways.
As a result librarians have adopted new methodologies in taking reference to the student rather than waiting for the student to show up at the desk. Librarians now go to students at computers and ask if they need help..
PLO 1: The student will demonstrate the information literacy skills for constructing effective search strategies (i.e keyword, advanced, truncation)
PLO 2: The student will demonstrate the information literacy skills for analyzing search results from library research tools (i.e library catalog or the online databases).
How does this PLO 1,2 support Library Goal 1?
Library goal #1: Integrate information literacy instruction into acceleration programs and guided pathways initiatives.
What are the expected outcomes?
The ability of the librarian to work individually with students at the Reference Desk is a critical “teachable moment”. shows that one-on-one instruction remains effective, especially in familiarizing the student with useful access to print and online resources. At least 75% of students assessed will demonstrate the ability to construct effective search strategies, At least 75% of students assessed will demonstrate the ability to construct effective search strategies; analyzing search results from library research tools (i.e library catalog or the online databases)..
What Method of Assessment will you use to assess this PLO?
The MoA will be a library survey with a 5-point Likert Scale.At least 75% of the student evaluated will report "strongly agree" or "agree" (on a Likert scale rating of 3.0 or higher) that they are able to formulate a search strategy and use the library catalog or databases to find relevant sources. Survey will be done by librarian and student. We will use inter-rater reliability to ensure that students and librarian assessments are all in tune with one another. We will use the Cohen's Kappa, the inter-rater reliability helps create a degree of objectivity
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How will you assess how well this goal was achieved (performance indicators)?
At least 75% of the student evaluated will report "strongly agree" or "agree" (on a Likert scale rating of 3.0 or higher) that they are able to formulate a search strategy and use the library catalog or databases to find relevant sources.
You may view PLO results in Tracdat
PLO Assessment for PLO 1,2,3 since last program review 2015-2016:
Summary of results:The assessment data shows that we are meeting our PLO goals in our reference desk assessment.
So how do we determine whether two observers are being consistent in their observations? We have chosen to implement a test for inter-rater reliability. Interrater reliability is the extent to which two or more individuals agree.
If you have watched the Olympics or any sport using judges, the scores are based upon judges as observers maintaining a great degree of consistency between themselves. If even one of the judges is erratic in their scoring system, this can jeopardize the entire system and deny a participant of their rightful prize. Another example is where a husbands response to marital satisfaction questions are related to (correlated with) wives responses. A third example is when a parents assessment of their child's achievements are related to (correlated with) with the child's assessment of his/her achievement.
Cuyamaca Reference Card Survey
Outside the world of sport, marriage and children, inter-rater reliability has some far more important connotations and can directly influence the Library. In our assessment, the CC Library will be assessing student IC skills are related to students own assessment of his/her achievement. For example, CC Library has designed a "self-efficacy survey" called Reference Card Survey (RCS) to assess SLO 1,2,3. Our RCS was used to report students sense of their own competence. Student self-efficacy involves students rating their perception of their own achievement in library learning outcomes. The Reference Card Survey includes a librarian assessment of student performance.
Data Collection procedures at Cuyamaca College Library
The data will be used to evaluate the quality of library reference services. The Reference Survey Card consists of two forms: Form A, which focuses on student experience during a reference desk interview, and Form B, which focuses on the librarian's experience during a reference desk interview. The librarian and the student will complete each form immediately after a reference desk interview.
For the rating of the students and the librarians to be consider "credible" and thus usable to draw conclusions, we must first test the degree to which the students and librarians agree about the student's experience with reference librarian. When we test the reliability of ratings we often compute the inter-rater reliability coefficient. It is generally accepted that a inter-rater reliability coefficient of .75 or higher suggests that the ratings are reliable. The closer to 1.0 (a perfect match), the more reliable the ratings are. For example, if we have the following data:
