College and Research Libraries TIMOTHY D. JEWELL Student Reactions to a Self-Paced Library Skills W orkbool~ Program: Survey Evidence This study compares student reactions to a media-assisted library skills lecture tour and a self-paced workbook covering similar material traces their reac- t~ons during the development of a workbook program, and analyzes associa- twns between student reactions and other variables. Workbook instruction was more favorably received by the students than lectures, their reactions im- proved as the workbook program developed, and assessments of course in- structor support were more strongly associated with student reactions than was academic status of the students. INTRODUCTION Many recent articles have pointed out that the " bibliographic instruction" movement within the library profession continues to ex- ert a substantial influence on the aims librar- ians set for themselves and their services. As a consequence, instruction librarians must persist in exploring and evaluating the most promising and cost-effective means of pro- viding users with what users need to know in order to exploit library resources efficiently and effectively. One such means of providing library user education is through self-paced workbooks or study guides, which have been in use at a number of colleges and universities for sev- eral years. 1 There are strong and convincing library or institutional arguments in favor of this kind of self-paced instruction, such as apparent effectiveness2 and low cost, 3 but important questions remain about student reactions to it. There are sound reasons for investigating student attitudes. For example, it is often held that positive attitudes lead to improved Timothy D. ]ewell is chair, Information Ser- vices, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio. learning, 4 so devising palatable instructional approaches may be viewed as a way of en- hancing attainment of educational objec- tives. Because library user education pro- grams have been seen as "vulnerable" for their "insufficient endorsement outside of the library community' " 5 studies of user views of the worth of their instruction may further legitimate the objectives of library education or suggest that they need to be re- assessed. And finally, it has been noted that there are frequently explicit or implicit attitudinal objectives in instruction programs. 6 Among such hoped-for outcomes are better user atti- tudes toward libraries and librarians with the implied goal of furthering indepe~dent, scholarly work. It seems quite unlikely that such goals can be attained through instruc- tional programs that users perceive as un- pleasant or burdensome. Although these considerations suggest a need for attitude surveys, a recent review noted their relative absence in the literature. 7 Several years ago Lubans provided some data on students' views of the need for in- struction in library use and showed that these views were more positive among doctoral students than freshmen. 8 In this study he pointed to professors as important influences I 371 372 I College & Research Libraries • September 1982 on students' use of the library and views of li- brary instruction, but did not actually dem- onstrate that connection. Hardesty showed some very positive stu- dent responses to an instructional program for freshmen at DePauw University and that some small but positive attitude change to- ward the library had been accomplished through the program, 9 but did not offer any evidence regarding factors fostering or re- tarding the growth of positive attitudes. Per- son showed a very positive long-term pattern of response to a one-credit elective course in library use at Southern Illinois University, and indicated that students seemed to appre- ciate the instruction more as time went on. 10 It should be noted that because of the elective nature of the course in question, part of the positive response pattern could be attributed to an "interest" or self-selection bias, and therefore not indicative of a generally held student opinion about bibliographic instruc- tion. Two studies that specifically dealt with self-paced products were by Olevnik, who found students rating a workbook "generally lower" in usefulness than a media presenta- tion, 11 and Phipps and Dickstein, who re- ported that questionnaire responses were generally "very positive" to a workbook pro- gram at Arizona. 12 The latter authors' un- published data indicate that between 77 and 92 percent of students taking workbook in- struction felt that the experience had helped orient them to the library buildings and would help them make better use of the li- brary.13 Many students with initial reserva- tions about the workbook approach also seemed to change their minds upon complet- ing it, and students completing the work- book preferred it to a less-time-consuming class lecture, although actual student reac- tions to lecture presentations were not mea- sured. These studies have neglected or skirted some interesting questions that the present research seeks to explore: (1) whether student reactions to a workbook program compare favorably with reactions to the common al- ternative teaching method-media-assisted oral presentation; (2) whether student reac- tions to instructional programs may be im- proved as a program progresses; and (3) whether there are specific factors that facili- tate the growth of positive attitudes toward a self-paced program. · This study followed Lubans' lead and sin- gled out the students' academic status and the behavior of the faculty as important in- fluences on student attitudes. Concerning academic status, it was strongly suspected that freshmen and sophomores would be more receptive to the instruction than would upper-division students. This was suspected because of the likelihood that, during the progression from freshmen to seniors, stu- dents develop "survival skills" of one kind or another based on such things as trial-and- error learning, "peer tutoring" of an infor- mal kind, or other methods. In expecting student assessments of course- instructor support for instruction to be posi- tively associated with student attitudes to- ward the instruction, the present study conformed to the near-universal "faculty in- fluence" theory of library use instruction. In essence, the theory holds that without the ac- tive support and encouragement of faculty members, students will not actively use the library or pay very serious attention to li- brary use instruction. BACKGROUND AND METHODS The research to explore these questions was done at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, as part of its development of instruc- tion and orientation programs. Develop- ment of a self-paced workbook program at Bowling Green began in 1978. The book was intended to replace a separate one-credit course in library research techniques that de- manded a great deal of time and reached rel- atively few students, and one-time lectures given to various classes, both of which, ac- cording to the librarians, were poorly re- ceived by some students and frequently inef- fective. More sophisticated subject-related instruction continued, and in order to in- crease student motivation for this instruc- tion, the workbook was established as an as- signment in English 112, the university's required composition course in which stu- dents are expected to research and write a term paper. The initial version of the work- book was ready for testing in these classes in the winter term of 1978-79. The workbook itself was modeled closely after those in use at UCLA and Penn State, although the chapters themselves and the ex- ercises were all written by librarians at BGSU, creating differences in emphasis, coverage, and style. Questions were designed in a multiple-choice format, and the primary attempt to convey "strategy," or show stu- dents how to apply the information to their term paper projects, consisted of suggestions placed at the bottom of each assignment sheet. The initial version included seven chapters on the following subjects: encyclopedias and their use, author-title approaches to the card catalog, subject approaches, locating books in the library, periodicals and periodical in- dexes, and microforms. Subsequent versions were expanded to include material on alma- nacs and statistical sources, biographical sources and book-review sources, and most recently, a section pertaining to government publications. Various editorial changes have also been made over the last two years in or- der to improve clarity and accuracy. Because it was intended to compare reac- tions to the workbook and to traditional lec- ture approaches, parallel forms of an attitu- dinal questionnaire were developed for administration to students who received in- struction through one or the other method. These questionnaires sought information re- garding students' academic status (fresh- man, sophomore, etc.); the amount of time required to complete the library assignment; and reactions to attitudinal statements on various facets of the instruction using a five- point Likert-type response format ranging from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree." For purposes of comparison during the pi- lot run of the workbook, all sections of English 112 for the winter quarter were as- signed to either a "workbook" or "lecture/ex- ercise" condition. Because each English in- structor was responsible for two sections, one of each instructor's sections was assigned to each condition, and the same librarian met with each of the instructors' sections. In the "workbook" sections this was done in order to introduce the librarians as potential re- source persons, to distribute workbooks, dis- cuss the program's rationale and procedures, answer questions, and to give a brief tour of the reference and microform/periodical ar- eas that the students would be using. In the "lecture" sections, librarians used a Student Reactions I 373 combination of slide and printed materials to cover the same general content found in the first seven workbook chapters mentioned previously. Because this approach had been used for some time prior to the experiment, all participating librarians were experienced in making the presentations. The students were also given brief tours of the reference and microform/periodical areas. They were then given an open-ended assignment aimed directly at helping them use the lecture con- tent to locate sources for their term paper projects. The librarians later received and corrected these assignments, and provided additional guidance on sources to consult for particular topics. Toward the end of the term, questionnaires were distributed to stu- dents in all sections of English 112. In gen- eral, cooperation was good, as indicated by the 71 percent response rate in "workbook" sections and 78 percent in "lecture" sections. Following this pilot project, the workbook was expanded, and additional question- naires were distributed in May and October of 1979 and May of 1980 in order to measure any change in student responses over time. Response rates were 70 percent in May 1979, 65 percent in October 1979, and declined to only 32 percent in May 1980 because of less vigorous attempts to secure cooperation and a high return rate. The number of usable questionnaires during this last period was still in excess of 450. In general, the procedures surrounding the workbook program remained the same throughout this time: librarians continued to meet with English 112 classes early in the term, students were provided with copies of the workbook and given two or three weeks to complete the project and hand in com- puter grading sheets with their answers on them. Grades and corrected answer sheets were sent to the English instructors by the li- brarian coordinating the program, along with guidance on minimum standards for successful completion of the assignment. GENERAL FINDINGS The questionnaire responses shown in ta- ble 1 indicate that, in general, students held favorable opinions about the library instruc- tion they received. Between 63 and 85 per- cent found it "clear and understandable," al- 'though relatively few (between 9 and 21 374 I College & Research Libraries • September 1982 TABLE 1 STUDENT ATTITUDES TOWARD LECTURE PRESENTATION AND WoRKBooK EXPERIENCES Method , or W orkbook Edition Feb . 1979 Feb . 1979 Ma y 1979 Oct. 1979 May 1980 Q uestion Lecture W orkbook W orkbook Wo rkbook W orkbook The workbook (lecture) was "clear and under- standable. " 63 .2 % 74.8 % 79.5 % 79.1 % 85.6 % I did not learn anything new from the workbook (etc .). The workbook (etc.) was interesting and stimu- 25 .6 23.6 14.8 15 .6 8.4 latinl 9.3 14.0 16.4 11.9 20 .7 I alrea y knew how to use a library-! didn't need any library instruction . 30.4 28.8 21.8 20.3 13 .7 My Entish instructor seemed to feel that the work ook ~tc.) was important. 56.1 31.8 57 .7 54.8 61.6 The workboo (etc.~ helped me feel more confi- dent in using the ibrary. 43.6 48.0 57.3 53.0 70.0 The workbook (etc.) was more trouble than it was worth. 29.6 34.8 32.4 29.0 18 .9 The workbook (etc.) helped me identify sources for my English paper. 41.1 32.8 35.2 34 .3 50.0 The library staff was helpful. 73.1 69.8 80 .5 77.5 70.4 The workbook (etc.) should have been more rel- evant to my English 112 term paper topic . Overall , the workbook (etc.) was a useful assign- 15 .2 26.4 24.9 26.4 18 .0 ment. 49 .1 49 .0 54.2 53.6 67.2 I would have preferred a 1-hour lecture and a different kind of exercise (etc.). 25 .6 21.3 17.4 24.1 10.1 (N=203) (N= 250) (N= 743) (N=263) (N=460) Note: Perce ntages indicate t he propo rtion of respondents indi cating t hat th ey "agreed" or "strongly agreed " w ith t he statement in th e left - hand colu mn. The questionn a ire used with t he lecture group var ied sli ghtl y from th e one used w ith the wo rkbook groups in order to refl ect the kind of instructi on th ey received. percent) found that instruction to be "inter- esting and stimulating. " Large proportions of students also felt that the library staff had been helpful to them during the course of their assignments (between 70 and 80 per- cent responded in this fashion). More general reactions to the instruction were somewhat less positive than these, but still encouraging. The proportion of students agreeing with the " negatively" worded state- ments, " I didn't learn anything new," and " I didn't need instruction," was in most cases, one-fourth or less. The proportion agreeing that the instruction was " more trouble than it was worth" was somewhat higher than this , however. Roughly half the students ex- pressed the feeling that their instruction helped them feel " more confident" in using the library, and that their instruction and ex- ercises had been " useful" assignments. Some interesting differences emerged both between responses of "lecture" and " work- book" students, and between those groups receiving the workbook assignment during different terms. For example, students in the "lecture" sections were less likely than those in "workbook" sections to feel that their lec- tures and assignments were "interesting and stimulating," and substantially less apt to find their instruction "clear and understand- able. " (These differences in proportions ranged from a low of 11.6 to a high of 22.4 percent.) Responses of "workbook" students to these questions grew more positive during the course of the study, and may reflect some refinements in the workbook that were grad- ually introduced. On the other hand, these students were more likely to feel that their as- signments should have been more relevant to their term paper topics, and generally less likely to say that their instruction had helped them identify sources for their term papers. One intriguing finding was that students who had the workbook assigned to them dur- ing the trial run in February of 1979 were substantially less likely than students in any other category to believe that their English instructors felt the instruction to be impor- tant. Because each instructor had one section receiving "lecture" instruction and one "workbook" instruction, it seems likely that the students were reacting to their instruc- tors' expressed reservations about the method of instruction, rather than about the content or worth of library instruction as such. It is also interesting to speculate that once the En- glish instructors had become familiar with the program , they passed more positive sig- nals along to their students, with potentially important implications for the students' own attitudes. Students receiving "lecture" instruction were also more likely to say that they had not "learned anything new" from the experience and to agree that they " didn't need" any li- brary instruction. Interestingly, the propor- tions of students expressing these negative views declined steadily over the course of the study . This may be explained by the fact that more, and probably less familiar, material was being presented to the students, suggest- ing something to them about the true scope of their "library knowledge. " There was also a clear decline in the proportion of students agreeing that their instruction had been "more trouble than it was worth, " although there was still a sizable contingent of nearly 20 percent who felt this way. The proportion of students agreeing that their instruction had helped them "feel more confident in us- ing the library, " and that "overall" their as- Student Reactions I 375 signment had been useful, increased steadily to more than two-thirds. The proportions disagreeing with these two statements also declined to 8.2 and 12.1 percent, respec- tively. THE INFLUENCE OF AcADEMIC STATus To gauge the influence of academic status on attitudes toward the workbook program, "lecture" respondents were ignored, and ju- niors and seniors were treated as one group. As expected, the response patterns and gamma statistics14 shown in table 2 point to- ward academic status as an important, if not strong, influence on student attitudes. On several questions regarding specific details of the program such as the clarity of the work- book itself, whether it was interesting and stimulating, and whether students perceived the library staff as helpful , freshmen and sophomores were somewhat more likely to have given a positive response. An interesting exception to this general pattern was found with respect to students' perceptions of in- structor support for the program. Here soph- omores perceived less support than either the freshman or junior/senior group, and the juniors and seniors perceived the most sup- port. Rather than being another manifesta- tion of a general attitude toward the pro- TABLE 2 RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ACADEMIC STATUS AND ATTITUDES TOWARD LIBRARY SKILLS WoRKBooK PROGRAM Academ ic Sta tus Question Freshman Sophomo re Juni or/Senior Gam ma The workbook was clear and understandable. 81.2 % 78.6 % 80.0 % -.07 I did not learn anything new from the workbook. 12.0 17.7 29.4 .24 The workbook w as interestinft and stimulating. 17.4 14.4 15 .3 -.08 I already knew how to use a ibrary-I didn't need any li- brary instruction. 17.0 23.6 48.2 .26 My English 112 instructor seemed to feel that the workbook was im1ortant . 56.3 49 .0 58.3 -.08 The work ook helped me feel more confident in using the library. 62 .3 54.4 40.0 - .19 The workbook was more trouble than it was worth. 26.4 33.3 31.8 .13 The workbook helped me identify sources for my English 112 term paper. 40.7 35.2 30.6 -.08 The library staff was helpful. 76.2 74.3 77.4 -.03 The workbook should have been more relevant to my En- glish 112 term paper topic. 23.2 24.7 23.5 .04 Overall , the workbook was a useful assignment . 59 .0 52.8 52.9 - .12 I would have preferred a 1-hour lecture and a different kind of exercise . 14.6 22 .9 16 .5 .19 (N= 1155) (N=451) (N=85) Note : Percentages ind ica te t he propo rti on of respondents indicatin g th at t hey "agreed " or "strongly agreed " with th e statement in th e left- hand column . 376 I College & Research Libraries • September 1982 gram, in other words, this variable may be an accurate reflection of the instructors' views. The group differences on more general questions about the program were more pro- nounced. For example, 41 percent of the freshmen agreed that the library instruction helped them locate sources for their term pa- pers, while 35 percent of the sophomores and 31 percent of the juniors and seniors did so. More dramatically, while 62 percent of the freshmen and 54 percent of the sophomores felt that their library instruction helped them to feel more confident in using the library, only 40 percent of the juniors and seniors agreed. Similarly, juniors and seniors were more likely than the others to say that they did not learn anything new from the assign- ment. This same response pattern was strongest with respect to the statement, "I already knew how to use a library-I didn't need any instruction." Where only 17 percent of the freshmen agreed with this assertion, 24 per- cent of the sophomores and 48 percent of the juniors and seniors did so. Because no data on the actual performance of these three groups were gathered, it is difficult to judge how ac- curately the upper-division students assessed their knowledge of library use. Interestingly enough, this group reported taking only slightly less _time to complete the assignment than the freshmen and sophomores, which would seem to contradict their opinions of their own expertise. Somewhat smaller group differences were also found on the two "summary" attitude questions. Where 26 percent of the freshmen agreed that the workbook was "more trouble than it was worth," 33 percent of the sopho- mores and 32 percent of the upper-division students did so. Although more than half the students in each group agreed that "overall, it was a useful assignment," the proportions declined from 59 percent among the fresh- men to 53 percent among the sophomores and 51 percent among the juniors and se- niors. THE INFLUENCE OF PERCEIVED INSTRUCTOR SuPPORT In order to judge the impact of perceived instructor support on student attitudes, the associations between responses to the state- ment, "My English 112 instructor seemed to feel that the workbook was important" and responses to the other attitude statements were examined. Although responses to this statement could be influenced by a general attitude toward the workbook project as a whole, it will be recalled that academic sta- tus did not seem to be an influence on re- sponses to this question, which should have been the case if judgments of "instructor sup- port" were the reflection of other attitudes, and hence of academic status. These student judgments also paralleled many of the librar- ians' judgments of the support they received from specific instructors, so it seems that they were not purely subjective. A casual comparison of tables 2 and 3 will immediately suggest that perceived instruc- tor support was an important influence on student attitudes. Using the gamma statistics as a point of reference, it is apparent that with only two exceptions the associations be- tween "perceived instructor support" andre- sponses to other attitude statements were stronger than the associations between aca- demic status and responses to those same statements. On some of the "detail" questions where academic status seemed not to have much ef- fect, such as the clarity of the book, whether it was perceived as interesting and stimulat- ing, and whether the library staff was help- ful, variations in perceived instructor sup- port clearly made a substantial difference. This was also true of responses to the question of whether the workbook helped students lo- cate sources for their term papers. An inter- esting question here is whether some instruc- tors showed their students how the information in the book could be used to lo- cate materials for term papers and thereby demonstrated their view of the project's im- portance, or whether students found good uses for the material by themselves after some general notes of encouragement from their instructors. Strong associations between perceived in- structor support and the more general "sum- mary" questions were also found. The weak- . est of these involved the question of whether students knew how to use the library and "didn't need" instruction. Students agreeing that their instructor felt the program to be important were far more inclined to say that Student Reactions I 377 TABLE 3 RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN STUDENTS' PERCEPTIONS OF INSTRUCTOR SuPPORT AND AGREEMENT WITH OTHER WoRKBOOK PROGRAM ATTITUDE STATEMENTS Question Perception of Suppo rt • Disagree Neutral The workbook was clear and understandable . 65.0 % 78.2 % I did not learn anything new from the workbook. 25.8 16.8 The workbook was interesting and stimulating. 11.0 11.4 Agree 84.5% 11.1 20.9 Gamma .28 -.28 .31 I already knew how to use a library-! didn' t need any library instruction. 33.3 21.2 17.5 The workbook helped me feel more comfortable in using the -.16 .33 -.26 . library. 36.2 54.0 66.2 The workbook was more trouble than it was worth. 48.8 34.0 21.6 The workbook helped me identify sources for my English 112 term paper . 20 .9 The library staff was helpful. 60.9 36 .9 72.8 42.9 80.0 .19 .26 The workbook should have been more relevant to my term paper topic. 32.5 Overall, the workbook was a useful assignment. 34.4 26.2 49 .9 20.4 65.3 -.16 .35 I would have preferred a 1-hour lecture and a different kind of exercise. 25.2 18.7 14.6 -.17 (N= 162) (N= 604) (N= 920) •Responses to the statement: "My English 11 2 instructor seemed to feel that the wo rkbook was important." Note: Percentages indicate the proportion of respondents indicating that they "agreed" or "strongly agreed" with the statement in the left- hand column. A similar procedure was used with responses to the "instructor support" varia ble. the project helped them feel more confident in using the library than those who did not see their instructors as supportive (66.2 ver- sus 36.2 percent), and were far less likely to agree that the workbook was " more trouble than it was worth" (21.6 versus 48.8 per- cent). The strongest association found in- volved the support variable and judgments on the usefulness of the assignment; where 65.3 percent of the "agreeing" group found it useful, only 34.4 percent of those "disagree- ing" did so. SuMMARY AND DiscussiON This study has shown that responses to the workbook program were generally favorable during the time period studied. Responses consistently improved as revisions were made and the English instructors became ac- customed to the program. The responses to the various editions of the workbook were more favorable than responses to the lectures and related assignments given for compari- son purposes during the developmental term in 1979. This study has also shown that stu- dent academic status and the students' per- ceptions of instructor support for the pro- gram are associated to a significant degree with student attitudes toward the program. Although it is heartening to see both the positive nature and generally upward direc- tion of the responses to the program, it is still somewhat disturbing to note that, during the last term studied in May 1980 (that in which student responses were the most favorable), nearly one-third of the students were at least skeptical or undecided , if not negative, about the overall usefulness of the workbook assignment. This should probably be viewed in the context of what may be similar student reactions to other required courses and as- signments in college, and may also be par- tially attributable to the disinclination of some students to engage in scholarly activi- ties. Nevertheless, this cautionary finding suggests the need to pursue further means of gaining positive reactions to this kind of li- brary use instruction. One apparent way to improve the general level of reaction , or to prevent negative reac- tions, would be to restrict participation in such a program to freshmen and sopho- mores. More promising, perhaps, would be the active pursuit of strong support for li- brary use education by course instructors. In the case of the program studied, this means several things: continued, frequent, and persuasive communication with instruc- tors regarding the importance of the pro- gram, encouragement of " positive" com- munication from them to students about the program, and active work with instructors to 378 I College & Research Libraries • September 1982 demonstrate how the workbook content may be integrated into class discussion. The pro- portion of students who find the workbook helpful-in locating material for term papers might also be increased by indicating how the workbook content may be applied to their topics, and also by examining the guidelines English instructors are using for acceptance of term paper topics. Several questions might be addressed by future research. While the present study has shown the connection between student per- ceptions of instructor support and student at- titudes toward various facets of the program, no other link was established between these student perceptions and the attitudes or be- havior of the instructors. Similarly, no rela- tionship was demonstrated between student perceptions or instructor attitudes and be- havior and actual long- or short-term per- formance, either on the workbook tasks or in collecting information for a term paper. Also of interest would be longitudinal studies of the type done at Southern Illinois, 15 which would examine student reactions to self- paced instruction over the course of a college career. REFERENCES 1. Among the available program descriptions are: Miriam Dudley, "The Self-Paced Library Skills Program at UCLA's College Library," in John Lubans, Jr., ed., Educating the Library User (New York: Bowker, 1974), p.330-35; Beverly L. Renford, " A Self-Paced Workbook Program for Beginning College Students," journal of Academic Librarianship 4:200-203 {Sept. 1978); Shelley Phipps and Ruth Dick- stein, "The Library Skills Program at the Uni- versity of Arizona," Journal of Academic Li- brarianship 5:205-14 (Sept. 1979). Several colleges or up.iversities with active workbook programs are cited in Beverly L. Renford and Linnea Hendrickson, Bibliographic Instruc- tion: A Handbook (New York: Neal-Schuman, - 1980), p.118-20. 2. See, for example: Arthur P. Young, "And Gladly Teach: Bibliographic Instruction and the Library," Advances in Librarianship 10:79 (1980); Richard H . Werking, "Evaluat- ing Bibliographic Instruction," Library Trends 29:159 (Summer 1980); Scott H. Duvall, Library Instruction: Two Teaching Methods (ERIC Document 112 898); James D. Hooks, "A Comparison of 3 Methods of Teach- ing Library Skills in Conjunction with Fresh- man English," Dissertation Abstracts Interna- tional41:8-A (July 1980). 3. Renford and Hendrickson, Bibliographic In- struction, p.115-16. 4. S. B. Kahn and Joel Weiss, "The Teaching of Affective Responses," in Robert M. W. Travers, ed., Second Handbook of Research on Teaching (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1973), p.770-72. 5. Young, "And Gladly Teach," p.80. 6. Werking, "Evaluating Bibliographic Instruc- tion," p.155. 7. Young, "And Gladly Teach," p.73. 8. John Lubans, Jr., A Look at Library Use In- struction Programs: The Problems of Library Users and Non-Users (ERIC Document 093 311). 9. Larry L. Hardesty, Nicholas P. Lovrich, Jr., and James Mannon, "Evaluating Library Use Instruction," College & Research Libraries 40:309-17 (July 1979). 10. Roland Person, "Long-term Evaluation of Bibliographic Instruction: Lasting Encour- agement," College & Research Libraries 42:19-25 (Jan. 1981). 11. Peter Olevnik, A Media-assisted Library In- struction Orientation Program Report (ERIC Document 134 138). 12. Phipps and Dickstein, "The Library Skills Pro- gram," p.214. 13. Shelley Phipps, unpublished material received with personal letter, June 16, 1981. 14. Gamma is a descriptive measure of the strength and direction of association for ordi- nal variables which does not require such re- strictive assumptions as the "normality" of the underlying distribution that are required by the more familiar Pearson's r. -Gamma may take values between - 1.0 and + 1.0. A posi- tive value indicates that "when we observe a relatively high value on one of the variables we will probably also observe . a relatively high value on the other," whereas a negative value indicates that, in general , " a high value on one variable will tend to occur with a low value of the other." (See Theodore R. Anderson and Morris Zelditch, Jr., A Basic Course in Statis- tics with Sociological Examples (2d ed.; New York: Holt, 1968), p.142; see also Robert H. Somers, "Statistics, Descriptive: Association," in William H. Kruskal and Judith M. Tanur, eds., International Encyclopedia of Statistics (New York: Free Press, 1978), p.1109-18.) 15. Person, "Long-term Evaluation."