College and Research Libraries Perceptions of Library Use by Faculty and Students: A Comparison Mary K. Sellen and Jan Jirouch Two equivalent questionnaires were distributed to faculty and students to detennine (1) if fac- ulty expectations of student library use differed from the students' perceptions of their actual use; and (2) if expectations and use were affected by college division, student class level, or class level taught. The results indicated that differences existed but that these differences were not affected by college division, class level taught, or student class level. Implications were that students will continue to utilize elementary library research skills and access secondary sources until faculty expectations are communicated directly to the students and are translated into organized library instruction. he methods of examining use of library materials have been di- verse. With economic pres- sures being applied to acquisi- tions' budgets, attempts to determine and measure what has been used in the library have assumed singular importance. To date, use studies have become common practice in assessing the type of library materials used by various clientele. Most of these studies have been based on mea- sures of circulation and/or surveys of indi- vidual use. 1 In a college library, the use of library ma- terials has not been determined solely by individual interest and need. Faculty ex- pectations for student use have been a compounding factor in the use process. 2 For the most part, faculty have come from research backgrounds and have expected students to use various library resources regardless of the class taught. There also have been indications that the use and type of use of library materials have been influenced by the academic discipline to which the faculty member or student be- longs and by the class level taught, or in the case of the student, the class status . This study was designed to expand upon the use study and to determine, by means of a survey, the relationship be- tween the respondent's academic status and her or his perceptions of expectations and actual use of library materials. The following research questions were addressed in this study: 1. Did faculty expectations of student li- brary use differ from the students' percep- tions of their actual library use? 2. Did faculty from the different college divisions have varying expectations of student library use and did the class levels taught affect these expectations? 3. Did students from the different col- lege divisions have varying perceptions of their library use and did class level affect these perceptions? 4. Did subjects within division and within class level, or class level taught, re- spond equally across response choices to the various questions concerning use of li- brary materials? METHODOLOGY This study was conducted at Pennsylva- nia State University-Behrend College, an Mary K. Sellen is head librarian, Pennsylvania State University- Behrend College, Erie, Pennsylvania 16563. Jan ]irouch is professor of psychology, Northern State College, Aberdeen, South Dakota 57401. 259 260 College & Research Libraries independent four-year college in the PSU system enrolling two thousand s~dents. The three college divisions, namely Arts and Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Natural Science and Engi- neering, were the academic disciplines identified for purposes of this study. Two equivalent questionnaires were de- . veloped for faculty and students for the purpose of eliciting (1) the use of or expo- sure to library instruction and (2) expecta- tions of use or use of library materials. The subjects were requested to respond to the questions by selecting an appropriate in- dividual response from a series of pre- selected choices. The choices were deter- mined on the basis of librarian observa- tions and expectation of library utilization by faculty and students. The student questionnaires were given over a two-week period in the winter term of 1982. Every student using the Behrend College Library during that time was asked to complete the survey. One hun- dred and forty-nine students were con- tacted. Of this sample, 129 questionnaires were completed. This group comprised 6 percent of the student body. The three col- lege divisions were represented in the sample in the following manner: 17 per- cent from Arts and Humanities, 45 per- cent from Social and Behavioral Sciences, and 38 percent from Natural Science and Engineering. Sixty-seven percent of these students were freshmen or sophomores and 38 percent were juniors or seniors. During the same time period the entire faculty received the questionnaire. Thirty- seven percent of the faculty completed and returned the survey. Of this number, 31 percent were from the division of Arts and Humanities, 41 percent were from the division of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and 28 percent were from the division of Natural Science and Engineering. Further classification revealed that 54 percent of the faculty taught freshman-sophomore classes only and 46 percent taught across all class levels. The results of the survey were pre- sented in frequencies and were analyzed by the chi-square statistic. This procedure was utilized because of the nominal na- ture of the data. Frequencies were tabu- July 1984 lated and the chi-square analysis was com- puted using the subprogram crosstabs in SPSS. RESULTS The research questions were addressed in several research hypotheses. The main research hypothesis tested the condition of no difference between faculty expecta- tions of student use of library materials and students' actual use of these materi- als. The results shown in table 1 indicated that faculty and students differed signifi- cantly (p < .05) on four of the seven ques- tions pertaining to library orientation and use of library materials. Although the majority of faculty and students responded positively to general required use of the library materials, a suf- ficient number of students indicated a lack of required use to create a significant dif- ference between faculty expectation of and students' perceptions of required li- brary use. Faculty and students also dif- fered significantly in their preference of source materials. Students tended more toward the use of books, whereas faculty expected students to use periodicals. The preferred publication dates of periodicals was another area of difference between the two groups. Faculty responded across dates, whereas students strongly pre- ferred recently published periodicals. The fourth area of difference between faculty and students was in the type of material to be used or used in research and class prep- aration. Faculty completely disregarded the use of encyclopedias and dictionaries. Twenty-six percent of the students re- ported these materials as viable sources of information. Faculty also expected in- dexes, abstracts, and other materials to be used more in research and class prepara- tion. Students indicated less use of these materials. The remaining three items showed similar responses for both faculty and students. Both groups were evenly di- vided on library orientation as part of class instruction, both indicated similar assign- ments of materials, and both preferred books with current publication dates. Two hypotheses dealt with the second research question of the study. The first of these hypotheses stated that no differ- l ft Perceptions of Library Use 261 TABLE 1 FACULTY/STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF LIBRARY USE f Faculty % Students Library Use f % Library orientation as part of class instruction: 20 52 66 51 Yes .03 No 19 48 63 49 Required use of library material: 39 100 105 81 Yes 9.00* No 0 0 24 19 Type of material assigned for use: Reserve materials 3 8 21 20 3.91 Materials for research and class preparation 11 28 33 31 Combined use of reserve and research material 19 49 38 36 Combined use of reserve, research, and other material 6 15 14 13 Preferred sources for use: 28 65 51 Books 11 13.25* Periodicals 23 59 60 41 Both 5 13 2 2 Perceived periodical relevance by years: 1980-~resent 18 46 77 62 1975- 9 3 8 17 14 8.30* 1970-74 0 0 1 1 All 18 46 28 23 Perceived book relevance by years: 1980-~resent 18 46 49 39 1975- 9 4 10 24 19 3.41 1970-74 1 3 10 8 All 16 41 43 34 Material used or to be used (by students) in research and class prepa- 12.71* ration: Indexes and abstracts Encrcl?pedias and dicti~maries Boo s m general collection Other (govt. documents, bibliographies, etc.) *P<.OS ences were expected between faculty members in the three college divisions in their responses to library orientation and expected student use of library materials; the second hypothesis was that no differ- ences were expected between the faculty teaching lower-level undergraduate classes and the faculty teaching across all class levels in their responses to library orientation and library materials to be used by students. The data presented in table 2 and table 3 clearly indicated that faculty members were similar in their re- sponses across divisions and across class levels. Only one significant chi-square value appeared between the divisions. This difference was due to a definitive preference for indexes and abstracts on the part of the faculty in Natural Science and Engineering. An analysis of response choices for fac- ulty within the specific college divisions, 13 36 31 24 0 0 33 26 15 42 49 38 8 22 16 12 when classified by class level taught, re- vealed significant preferences for library materials to be used by students. It should be noted that although there were signifi- cant differences within groups in many cases, these differences were either simi- lar across all groups or they were not of sufficient magnitude to create a significant difference between divisions or between class-level groupings. According to the data in table 2 and table 3, a significant number of faculty in the di- vision of Arts and Humanities and the di- vision of Social and Behavioral Sciences, as well as the faculty teaching only fresh- man and sophomore courses, believe li- brary orientation could be compatible with their discipline. Furthermore, all fac- ulty required their students to use the li- brary, but they were divided on their in- clusion of library orientation in class instruction. 262 College & Research Libraries July 1984 TABLE2 DIVISION FACULTY PERCEPTIONS OF LffiRARY USE FOR STUDENTS Arts and Social/Behav. Natural Humanities Sciences fSc i./Eng. % X2:j: Library Use f % f % Library orientation compatible with the dis- 2.49 ciplme: Yes 10 83 12 75 6 55 No 2 17 4 25 5 45 X2t 5.33* 4.00* .09 Library orientation as part of instruction: 0.07 Yes 6 50 8 50 6 55 No 6 50 8 50 5 45 X2t 0 0 .09 Required student use of library materials: Yes 12 100 16 100 11 100 § Type of material assigned for use: 5.69 Reserve materials 0 0 1 6 2 18 Materials for research and class prepa- ration 4 33 4 25 3 27 Combined use of reserve and research material 7 58 9 56 3 27 Combined use of reserve, research, and other material 1 8 2 13 3 27 X2t 10.00* 9.5* .27 Preferred sources for student use: 1.60 Books 4 33 3 19 4 36 Periodicals 6 50 11 69 6 55 Equal choice of both books and periodi- cals 2 17 2 12 1 9 X~ 2.00 9.13* 3.45 Perceived periodical relevance by years: 2.36 1980-~resent 6 50 9 56 3 27 1975- 9 1 8 1 6 1 9 1970-74 0 0 0 0 0 0 All equal 5 42 6 38 7 64 X~ 8.67 13.50* 10.45 Perceived book relevance by years: 8.25 1980-~resent 3 25 10 63 5 45 1975- 9 2 17 2 12 0 0 1970-74 0 0 0 0 1 9 All equal 7 58 4 25 5 45 X2t 8.67* 14.00* 7.55 Materials expected to be used by students in research and class preparation: 9.57* Indexes and abstracts 2 20 4 25 7 70 Enckclopedias and dictionaries 0 0 0 0 0 0 Boo s in the general collections 6 60 6 37 3 30 Other (govt. documents, bibliogra- fhies, etc.) 2 20 6 37 0 0 x2 1.65 1.20 6.99* *P< .05 tWithin divisionX2. :j:Between division X2. §Not applicable due to 100 percent yes response . As indicated by the responses to the significant chi-square value that appeared type of material assigned for library use, for those faculty members in Arts and Hu- faculty teaching across all class levels and manities was due more to an empty cell faculty in the division of Social and Behav- phenomena than to any real differences in ioral Sciences showed significant prefer- response choices. ence for a combined use of reserve andre- Faculty in Social and Behavioral Sci- search material for student use. The ences and those faculty teaching ,- l Perceptions of Library Use 263 TABLE 3 FACULTY PERCEPTIONS OF LffiRARY USE FOR STUDENTS ACCORDING TO CLASS LEVEL TAUGHT FrfSoph. 0~ All Class Levels Library Use f % X~ Library orientation compatible with the discipline: 0.13 Yes 15 71 13 72 No 6 29 5 28 X2t 3.86* 3.56 Library orientation as part of instruction: 0.72 Yes 12 57 8 44 No 9 43 10 56 x2t 0.43 0.22 Required student use of library materials: § Yes 21 100 18 100 Type of material assigned for use: 2.07 Reserve materials 2 10 1 6 Materials for research and class preparation 7 33 4 22 Combined use of reserve and research material 8 38 11 61 Combined use of reserve, research, and other material 4 19 2 11 x2t 4.33 13.56* Preferred sources for student use: 1.06 Books 5 24 6 33 Periodicals 14 66 9 50 E~1ual choice of both 2 10 3 " 17 Xt 11.14* 3.00 Perceived periodical relevance by years: 1.02 1980-~resent 11 52 7 39 / 1975- 9 1 5 2 11 1970-74 0 0 0 0 All 9 43 9 ,50 X2t 17.67 11.78* Perceived book relevance by years: 3.01 1980-~resent 8 38 10 56 1975- 9 3 14 1 6 1970-74 0 0 1 6 All 10 48 6 33 X2t 11.95* 12.21 * Materials expected to be used by students in research and class preparation: 1.36 Indexes and abstracts 8 40 5 28 Enckclopedias and dictionaries 0 0 0 0 Boo s in the ~eneral collections 9 45 6 33 Other (govt. ocuments, bibliographies, etc.) 3 15 5 28 X2t 10.80* 4.67 *P< .05 +Within class X2 . tBetween class level taught X2 . §X2 not applicable due to 100 percent yes response. freshman-sophomore courses indicated a tance of the significant chi-square value significant preference for student use of for periodical relevance for faculty teach- periodicals . When periodicals were as- ing freshmen and sophomores. These val- signed, all groups selected both current ues were contributed to by the empty cell publication dates and all publication dates and not to real differences between re- as relevant sources of information. Cur- sponse choices. Tent publication dates for books were a For materials expected to be used by stu- significant response choiG:e for the facultj dents in research and class preparation, teaching across all class levels and for the the only viable significant response choice faculty in Social and Behavioral Sciences. appeared for faculty in the division of Nat- Again, care must be taken in the accep- ural Science and Engineering. These indi- 264 College & Research Libraries viduals expected students to primarily use indexes and abstracts in their research and class preparation. The significant c.i- square value that appeared for faculty teaching freshmen and sophomores was again the result of the empty cell. A similar set of hypotheses dealt with the third research question; namely that (1) no differences were expected between students in the three college divisions in their exposure to and use of library materi- als, and that (2) no differences were ex- pected between lower-level undergradu- ates and upper-level undergraduates in their exposure to and use of library materi- als. Results presented in table 4 and table 5 confirmed these two hypotheses. In order to address the fourth research question, the results were analyzed for within-division and within-class response choice differentiation. It was found that al- though a significant number of students indicated they were required by instruc- tors to use the library, there was not a sig- nificant number reporting exposure to ali- brary tour or library orientation as a part of class instruction. Also, the students were similar across divisions in not identifying specific types of assigned library material. Only the lower-level undergraduate stu- dents perceived particular types of mate- rial as being assigned by their instructors for class use. The students in all classification groups chose either books or periodicals as pre- ferred sources of information. They did not indicate a use of a combination of the two sources. The lack of response to this option contributed to the significant chi- square value for all groups; however, when the low cell was removed, neither books nor periodicals emerged as a signifi- cant choice. There was a significant preference across groups for current periodical publi- cation dates. The one exception was the division of Arts and Humanities. These students selected either current or all dates as their most relevant sources. Similar responses appeared for book rel- evance within the various groupings. However, the significance was not due to a singular preference for current book dates but rather was due to a very equal July 1984 distribution of responses to both current dates and dates spanning all years. For materials used in research and class preparation, students, regardless of clas- sification, indicated a preference for books. For those students in Natural Sci- ence and Engineering and for those classi- fied as freshman-sophomore students, this preference contributed to the signifi- cant chi-square value. Student choices in the other groupings were more evenly dis- tributed across all choice options. DISCUSSION The results of this study showed that differences existed between faculty expec- tations of students' library use and the students' perceptions of library use to supplement in-class materials. The differ- ences indicated that students were either not perceiving and/or acting upon faculty expectations or that faculty were not com- municating their expectations for library use to the students. This assumption was substantiated by the fact that 45 percent of the responding faculty in the division of Natural Science and Engineering did not indicate orientation as compatible with their instruction, nor did they indicate use of orientation; and in both the division of Arts and Humanities and the division of Social and Behavioral Sciences the faculty were equally divided when indicating use of orientation as part of instruction. It could, therefore, be concluded that many times faculty were not making introduc- tory library orientation available to stu- dents in the course of instruction, even though all faculty considered library us- age as a required activity. Student responses corroborated this as- sumption. Responses showed that half of the students in this sample were not re- ceiving even a basic orientation tour, much less library instruction. Also, stu- dents did not perceive required library use as strongly as faculty. In conjunction with this it was interesting to note that only 6 percent of the student population used the library over a two-week period. These facts supported the contention that stu- dents, when left on their own to use the library for academic purposes, did not make even minimum use of this resource J ' ( Perceptions of Library Use 265 TABLE4 DIVISION STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF LIBRARY USE Arts and Social/Behav. Natural Humanities Sciences Sci. /Eng. x2:j: Library Use f % f % f % Orientation tour: .13 Yes 11 50 31 54 27 54 No 11 50 26 46 23 46 X2t 0 .44 .32 Library orientation as part of class instruc- tion: 1.18 Yes 9 41 31 54 26 52 No 13 59 26 46 24 48 X2t .73 .44 .08 Required by instructor to use library mate- rial: 1.71 Yes 20 91 46 81 39 78 No 2 9 11 19 11 22 X2t 14.73* 21.49* 15 .68* Type of material assigned for use: 1.80 Reserve materials 4 20 8 17 9 23 Materials for research and class prepa- ration 5 25 14 30 14 36 Combined use of reserve and research material 8 40 18 38 12 31 Combined use of reserve, research, and other material 3 15 7 15 4 10 X 2t 2.80* 6.87* 5.82* Sources most used: 5.70 Books 14 63 24 44 27 54 Periodicals 7 32 31 56 22 44 ~~ual use of both 1 5 0 0 1 2 4.89 28 .84* 22.84* Perceived periodical relevance by years: 7.96 1980-~resent 9 45 36 64 32 68 1975- 9 2 10 8 14 7 15 1970-74 0 0 1 2 0 0 All 9 45 11 20 8 17 X2t 13.2* 49.86* 49 .77* Perceived book relevance by years: 5 .55 . 1980-~resent 8 28 21 38 20 40 1975- 9 1 5 12 22 11 22 1970-74 1 5 5 9 4 8 All 11 52 17 31 15 30 X2t 14.62* 10.38* 10.96* Materials used in research and class prepa- ration: 3.22 Indexes and abstracts 4 18 16 28 11 22 Encrclopedias and dictionaries 6 27 12 21 15 30 Boo s in the general collections 9 41 20 35 20 40 Other (govt. documents, bibliogra- fhies, etc.) 3 14 . 9 16 4 8 x2 6.80 4.82 10.96* *P< .OS tWithin divisionX2. :tBetween division x2. even though faculty very strongly ex- expectations or orientation were being im- pected such usage. These conditions plemented. could account also for the lack of differ- Another significant difference between ences between divisions and class level faculty and students occurred in the pre- taught or class status, since no definitive ferred sources for use. The fact that faculty 266 College & Research Libraries July 1984 I TABLE 5 STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF LffiRARY USE BY CLASS LEVEL Fr .fSoph . Ot Jr .-Sr. x2t Library Use % Orientation tour: 0.32 Yes 44 51 25 58 No 42 49 18 42 X2t .05 1.14 Library orientation as part of class instruction: 1.71 Yes 40 47 26 61 No 46 53 17 39 X2t .42 1.88 Required by instructors to use library material: 0.06 Yes 69 80 36 84 No 17 20 7 16 X2t 31.44* 19 .56* Type of material assigned for use: 2.33 Reserve materials 14 20 7 19 Materials for research and class preparation 24 34 9 25 Combined use of reserve and research material 25 36 13 36 Combined use of reserve, research, and other material 7 10 7 19 X2t Sources most used: Books Periodicals i~al use of both Perceived periodical relevance by years: 1980-~resent 1975- 9 1970-74 All X2t Perceived book relevance by years: .1980-~resent 1975- 9 1970-74 All X2t Materials used in research and class preparation: Indexes and abstracts Enckclopedias and dictionaries Boo s in the ~eneral collections Other (govt. ocuments, bibliographies, etc.) X2t *P< .OS tWithin class . tBetween class . preferred periodicals to the students' pref- erence for books might indicate that the students were not aware that much of the relevant information for today' s research across all disciplines was being generated from periodical .sources and that many times this information did not make it into book form. Furthermore, when students did use periodicals, they tended to use only the most current issues, thereby pos- sibly overlooking the fact that a particular 12.62* 2.66 0.72 45 54 20 47 38 45 22 51 1 1 1 2 39.93* 18.75* 5.51 52 65 25 58 7 9 10 23 1 1 0 0 20 25 8 19 77.70* 30.40* 33 38 16 40 15 18 9 22 7 8 3 8 31 36 12 30 22.09* 9.00* 0.82 20 23 11 26 21 24 12 28 35 41 14 32 10 12 6 14 14.74* 3.24 subject might be covered over a period of years in a specific title. The results also showed no significant difference between class levels; thus it could be assumed that junior and senior students were continu- ing to perform much 1ike freshmen and sophomores in their use of general library sources. Since upperclassmen could rea- sonably be expected to be similar to the faculty in their preference for periodicals, this difference could be attributed to a lack j j l r of library instruction on all class levels. In addition to the different preferences in general sources, the types of specific li- brary materials used by students were quite different from the materials that the faculty expected to be used, especially in the use of dictionaries and encyclopedias. One reason for this difference could be the fact that when students studied a particu- lar subject for the first time, resources such as dictionaries and encyclopedias may be needed for basic definitions. How- ever, since the trend to use books, dictio- naries, and encyclopedias continued throughout the junior and senior years, a more plausible explanation might be that students were relying on their high school library research skills and emphasizing secondary sources but lacked both the Perceptions of Library Use 267 knowledge of and the skills to access and use primary sources. It appeared from the results of this study that if students were to be expected to suc- cessfully use sophisticated library re- sources for the enhancement of course material and for specific research endeav- ors, they needed to have knowledge of and the appropriate skills to use these re- · sources. It was just as apparent that stu- dents neither acquired such knowledge or skill on their own nor did they seem to be inclined to utilize library resources with- out some external direction and motiva- tion. Thus expectations for adequate and successful use of library materials must be translated into a combination of overt fac- ulty direction and some type of organized graduated library instruction. REFERENCES 1. There are many studies in print. Among those consulted for this study are the following: L. Har- desty, "Use of Library Materials at a Small Liberal Arts College," Library Research 3:261-82 (Fall 1981); R. M. Hayes, "The Distribution of Use of Library Materials: Analyses of Data from the Uni- versity of Pittsburgh," Library Research 3:215-60 (Fall1981); J. B. Whitlatch, "Library Use Patterns Among Full and Part-time Faculty and Students," College and Research Libraries 44:141-52 (Mar. 1983). 2. A. P. Naylor, Suroey of Faculty Expectations: Student Homework, ED 188 704 (Toledo, Ohio: Univ. of Toledo, 1974), p.2.