Research Article
Assessing the Impact of Reference Assistance and
Library Instruction on Retention and Grades Using Student Tracking Technology
Dennis Krieb
Director, Institutional
Research and Library Services
Reid Memorial Library
Lewis & Clark Community
College
Godfrey, Illinois, United
States of America
Email: dkrieb@lc.edu
Received: 1 Jan. 2018 Accepted: 12 Apr. 2018
2018 Krieb. This is an Open Access article
distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons‐Attribution‐Noncommercial‐Share Alike License 4.0
International (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly attributed, not used for commercial
purposes, and, if transformed, the resulting work is redistributed under the
same or similar license to this one.
Abstract
Objective – To assess the impact of community
college academic librarians upon student retention and grades through reference
desk visits and attendance in library instruction classes.
Methods –
Student ID data used for this research was collected from students that visited
the reference desk to consult about a course-related question or attended a
library instruction class for a specific course. After consenting to share
their student ID number, the students’ IDs were scanned and uploaded to a
Blackboard Analytics data warehouse. A Pyramid Analytics reporting tool was
used to query and extract student-level retention and grade data based upon
whether the student had visited the reference desk or attended a library
instruction class. Chi-square and Fisher’s exact tests were used to discern any
statistical difference in retention rates and grades between students that
engaged a librarian through reference or instruction and the general student
population.
Results – When
comparing fall-to-fall retention for all degree-seeking students, students that
visited the reference desk or attended a library instruction class had a
statistically higher rate of retention. When comparing fall-to-fall retention
within low-retention student cohorts, students that visited the reference desk
or attended a library instruction class had higher rates of retention. Rates of
retention in 8 of 10 cohorts were statistically higher for library instruction
and in 6 of 10 cohorts were statistically higher for reference visits. With
respect to course grades, only one of five high enrollment courses showed a
higher grade average for students that attended a library instruction class.
None of the differences in average grades between students that attended a
library instruction class and all students in the five courses were
statistically significant. For the impact of a reference visit upon a course
grade, all five courses showed a higher average grade average for students that
visited the reference desk for a question related to their course than for all
students in the course. Four of the five differences were statistically
significant.
Conclusions – The data
collected by systematically tracking students that interact with community
college librarians suggests that reference desk visits and attendance of
library instruction classes both have a positive statistically significant
impact upon student retention. When looking at course grades, the data does not
indicate a statistically significant positive or negative impact for library
instruction. The impact of visiting the reference desk upon course grades does
suggest a strong statistically significant positive correlation.
Introduction
Lewis
& Clark Community College is a two-year higher education institution
located in Godfrey, Illinois. Lewis & Clark has multiple campuses, a river
research center, a humanities center, a training center, and Community
Education Centers located throughout the more than 220,000-person college
district that reaches into 7 counties in Southwestern Illinois. Unduplicated,
degree-seeking enrollment for academic year 2016-2017 was 7,673 students.
The
confluence of reductions in state-level funding and declining student
enrollments has generated a sense of urgency upon student retention efforts at
Lewis & Clark Community College. In the years from 2006 to 2011,
fall-to-fall retention for full-time students dropped from 57% to 52%, and from 42% to 39% for part-time students. These data
mirror the low retention rates of all two-year community colleges, where nearly
50% of students leave by the end of their first year of enrollment (Hongwei, 2015). Within this challenging environment, there
began a new emphasis by state-level education agencies and higher education
accreditors for evidence based initiatives supporting student success.
To
address the demand for more evidence of success, a new approach to leverage
data was decided upon by administrators in Academic Affairs, Enrollment
Services, and Institutional Research. A campus culture would be cultivated that
relied heavily upon quantitative student assessment of innovative practices
using predefined measures of success. This approach would also explore student
tracking of support services on campus as a means to better understand the
impact of these services upon student success measures.
In
2012, the Student Success Team was established to address success initiatives
related to grades and retention. Members of the Student Success Team included
senior level academic administrators and members of the Institutional Research
department. The Student Success Team would act as an academic think tank to
investigate, pilot, and assess trends in higher education associated with
evidence based practices to improve student success.
The
Student Integration Model developed by Vincent Tinto suggests that supportive
social and educational communities outside of the classroom have a positive
impact upon student retention (Tinto, 2012). It was upon this theoretical
framework that the Student Success Team began to investigate the impact of
student support services at Lewis & Clark upon grades and retention.
The
first student support service selected by the Student Success Team to
investigate was academic tutoring. Branded as the Student Success Center,
tutoring at Lewis & Clark is decentralized among various campus locations.
Reid Library also hosts a Student Success Center location that provides
assistance for students seeking tutoring in writing and study skills. In 2013,
students that were tutored at any Student Success Center location were tracked
to discern the impact of tutoring upon retention. The fall-to-fall retention
rate for degree-seeking students enrolled in Fall 2013
that were tutored was found to be 65.6% (N=640), as compared to the overall
retention rate for all degree-seeking students of 51.5% (N=5085).
The
Student Success Team decided to expand the research of Tinto’s Student
Integration Model to Reid Library in 2014. This decision was supported by
research connecting the services and collections of academic libraries to Tinto’s
Student Integration Model (Oakleaf, 2010).
Correlational evidence linking student retention and academic success with
academic libraries published by the University of Minnesota (Soria, Fransen, & Nackerud, 2013)
was also instrumental in the Student Success Team’s decision to investigate the
impact of Reid Library upon student grades and retention.
Another
aspect of the Student Success Team work would be its emphasis on evidence based
research using Lewis & Clark’s technology infrastructure. A data warehouse
had recently been implemented, providing the ability to quickly identify
calculated success measures such as grades and retention for specific student
cohorts. A list of ten student cohorts with retention rates below the overall
student retention rate would be used to assess the impact of Tinto’s Student
Integration Model within Reid Library.
Table
1
Student
Demographics - Lewis & Clark Community College, Fall
2017
|
Student Type
|
Percentage
|
|
White
|
80.2%
|
|
African-American
|
9.8%
|
|
Hispanic
|
2.3%
|
|
Female
|
60.5%
|
|
18-19
Years of Age
|
36.1%
|
|
20-24
Years of Age
|
33.2%
|
|
First
Generation College
|
24.7%
|
|
Developmental
Math or English Placement
|
53.0%
|
|
Accepted
Pell Grant
|
39.2%
|
|
Veteran
|
3.7%
|
Literature Review
There
exists a crisis in retention and completion that is unique to community
colleges. Approximately 51% of all entering community college students will
have dropped out within their first year (National Student Clearinghouse
Research Center, 2016), and only 20% seeking to transfer to a four-year
institution will eventually do so (Lloyd & Eckhardt,
2010). For minority and part-time students, retention and completion are often
lower when compared to other community college students (Strayhorn, 2012).
In
his classic work Leaving College,
Vincent Tinto (2012) suggests that student attrition in postsecondary education
is related to a student’s immersion within the greater campus community.
“Institutions of higher education are not unlike other human communities, and
the process of educational departure is not substantially different from the
other processes of leaving which occur among human communities generally” (p.
204). Student support services help foster a campus community of belonging by
creating social relationships, clarifying aspirations and enhancing commitment,
developing college know-how, and making college life feasible (Karp, 2011).
Research
applying Tinto’s theoretical framework of student integration to various
student support services has yielded positive correlational relationships
between these services and student retention. Derby (2006) discovered a
significant positive relationship between student club participation and
retention and degree completion. The research of Grillo
and Leist (2013) with student academic tutoring also
discovered a positive relationship between tutoring and student retention and
completion.
Research
seeking to assess the academic library as a factor for increasing student
success metrics such as retention and completion is still a relatively new
field of study. Early studies often looked at aggregated data sets to discern
any correlational relationships between library input and output measures with
institutional retention and completion rates. Mezick’s
(2007) study found a positive relationship between total library expenditures
and student retention for postsecondary institutions offering a baccalaureate
degree. A positive relationship between library professional staff and student
retention was also found in the research of Emmons and Wilkinson (2011) when
analyzing data sets taken from the 2005-2006
Annual Survey of ARL Statistics.
With
the recent introduction of predictive and learning analytics within higher
education, institutions are now seeking more nuanced data to forecast student
behaviour to proactively engage students to improve student success measures (Lourens & Bleazard, 2016).
For academic libraries, this new emphasis upon predictive and learning
analytics represents a need to rethink how data is collected and how librarians
can connect academic library outcomes to institutional outcomes such as
retention and graduation (Oakleaf, 2010).
One
of the first major studies looking into student-level interactions with
academic library services and collections was conducted at the University of
Minnesota. This research involved collecting student-level data from students
that interacted with or used a library service or collection and connecting
these data to the students’ subsequent enrollment and grade point averages.
Findings from this research suggested that first-year students that used the
library had a higher grade point average and fall-to-spring retention rate than
their peers that did not use the library (Soria, Fransen,
& Nackerud, 2013). An additional study at the
University of Minnesota discovered that first-year students that used
electronic resources and books had higher odds of graduating over withdrawing
(Soria, Fransen, & Nackerud,
2013).
The
research shared in this paper applies the student-level approach to tracking
student engagement with the library, much like the work published by the
University of Minnesota. It is hoped that the findings in this research will
add to the literature regarding predictive analytics within academic libraries,
the technology infrastructure needed to systematically track students that use
the library, and the impact of library services – specifically, reference desk
encounters and library instruction classes – upon retention and grades.
Methods
As
previously mentioned in the literature review section, the research of Soria, Fransen, and Nackerud (2013) at
the University of Minnesota was one of the first published articles to apply
student-level tracking data from an academic library to investigate the impact
of librarians, services, and collections upon student success measures. This
seminal research served as the model for establishing the methods and measures
for this paper. By applying the methodology used in the University of Minnesota
study, a comparison of findings can be made between a two-year community
college and major research university.
Independent
and Dependent Variables
In
2014, Reid Library began systematically tracking student use in the library.
Two library service areas would serve as independent variables: 1) attendance
of a library instruction class and 2) visiting the reference desk for
assistance. A threshold was established that only reference questions
associated with an enrolled course would be tracked; directional and other non-course
related questions would not be measured for their impact upon retention and
grades. There were two dependent variables used in this research: 1)
fall-to-fall retention and 2) student grades for five courses having the
highest association with reference desk questions and library instruction. All
students in this research had a degree-seeking status.
Data
Collection
A
fundamental component of Lewis & Clark’s evidence based research is its
technology infrastructure. Central to
this architecture is the Blackboard Analytics data warehouse. The data
warehouse serves as a data repository, housing data tables related to student
characteristics, enrollments, grades, and completions from the Ellucian Student Information System (SIS). The Pyramid
Analytics reporting tool provides the ability to query the data warehouse for
calculated student success measures based upon treatments or services the
student may have received.
The technology infrastructure showing how student
tracking data is merged with student data retrieved from the SIS is depicted in
Figure 1. After a library instruction class or reference visit was completed,
the librarian asked for permission from the student to track his or her
attendance or visit. This is commonly known as a verbal informed consent. The
librarian explained to the student that no content-level information would be
recorded, only that they have either attended a library instruction class or
visited the reference desk. The student was informed that the data would only
be used for research purposes – including the possibility of sharing publicly –
to better understand student success metrics, and that no personally
identifiable information would ever be shared. Since the inception of this
pilot in 2014, no student has ever declined to be tracked.
Figure
1
Technology infrastructure for tracking
reference desk visits and library instruction attendance.
If the student agreed to share his or her student
ID and course information, the librarian used a barcode scanner or manually
entered the student ID in the tracking software. After entering the student ID,
a list of the student’s currently enrolled courses was provided by the tracking
software.
The librarian then selected the appropriate course
with which the library instruction class or reference visit was associated. The
tracking software platform used for this initial phase is called SARS
TRAK.
After scanning the student ID and selecting the
associated course, these data were sent to a Blackboard Analytics data
warehouse. Student data regarding grades, enrollment, demographics, and other
student-level data from the SIS were merged with the tracking data imported
from SARS TRAK within the data warehouse. A Pyramid Analytics reporting tool
was then used to query the data warehouse for calculated student success
measures based upon whether the student had visited the reference desk or
attended a library instruction course.
Results
Tables
2 and 3 compare the fall-to-fall retention rate for all degree-seeking students
for academic years 2014/15-2016/17 with the fall-to-fall retention rates of
degree-seeking students that attended a library instruction class or visited
the reference desk for the same time period. Students that attended a library
instruction class had a fall-to-fall retention rate of 60.9% (N=1,304), which
was higher than the overall retention rate of 48.8% (N=7,319) for all
degree-seeking students. Students that visited the reference desk had a
retention rate of 66.2% (N=215).
To
discern the impact of library instruction and reference assistance for students
having characteristics associated with lower retention rates, ten student
cohorts were identified as having lower retention rates than the retention rate
of 48.8% (N=7,319) for all degree-seeking students.
Table
4 shows the overall retention rate for each student cohort and the retention
rate for the students within each cohort that attended a library instruction
class or visited the reference desk. All 10 low retention student cohorts had a
higher rate of retention when attending a library instruction class or visiting
the reference desk, with 8 cohorts having a statistically significant difference
for library instruction and 6 cohorts statistically higher for reference.
Tables
5 and 6 compare the course grade success rates with library instruction and
reference desk visits. Success rates are defined at Lewis & Clark as a
grade of A, B, or C, and failure is a grade of D, F, or
W.
The
impact of library instruction on grades was minimal, with only one of the five
courses having a higher success rate than the overall course success rate.
Courses selected in Table 4 had the highest association of requiring attendance
of a library instruction class as part of the course. There was no
statistically significant difference in any of the success rates for the five
courses.
Courses
selected in Table 6 had the highest association with a reference question
relevant to the course. Unlike library instruction, students in all five
courses that visited the reference desk had a higher success rate than the
overall course
success rate. Four of the five courses had a statistically significant higher
success rate for those students that visited the reference desk for assistance
with their coursework.
Discussion
Testing
Tinto’s Student Integration Model in the context of librarian interactions with
students has provided Lewis & Clark Community College with correlational
evidence that relationships developed with college personnel outside of the
classroom are impactful for student success. With respect to the two
independent library variables tested in this research, both library instruction
and reference assistance were shown to have a positive statistically
significant correlational relationship with student retention. The
correlational relationship between library instruction and grades was not
established in this research; however, the data did reveal a positive
statistically significant correlation between reference assistance and grades.
Table
2
Fall-to-Fall
Retention Rate for All Degree-Seeking Students, Academic Years 2014/15-2016/17
|
|
N
|
Fall-to-Fall
Retention Rate
|
|
All Degree-Seeking Students
|
7,319
|
48.8%
|
N
represents a distinct student count.
Table
3
Fall-to-Fall
Retention Rates for Students Attending a Library Instruction Class or Visiting
the Reference Desk, Academic Years 2014/15-2016/17
|
N
|
Fall-to-Fall
Retention Rate
|
|
Attended a Library Instruction Class
|
1,304
|
60.9%**
|
|
Visited the
Reference Desk
|
215
|
66.2%**
|
N
represents a distinct student count.
* P<.05
**
P<.01
Table
4
Fall-to-Fall
Retention Rates for Student Cohorts with Low Retention Rates that Attended
Library Instruction or Visited the Reference Desk, Academic Years
2014/15-2016/17
|
Low Retention Cohort
|
N
|
Retention Rate- All Degree-Seeking Students
|
N
|
Retention
Rate-
Attended Library Instruction
|
N
|
Retention Rate-
Visited the Reference Desk
|
|
Cumulative GPA below 2.0
|
1,508
|
29.6%
|
120
|
34.1%
|
29
|
48.3%*
|
|
African- American
|
787
|
38.0%
|
150
|
46.4%*
|
37
|
59.5%**
|
|
Cumulative
GPA 2.0 - 2.29
|
3,509
|
40.2%
|
129
|
51.9%**
|
16
|
68.8%
|
|
Male
|
3,292
|
44.7%
|
543
|
57.7%**
|
70
|
65.7%**
|
|
Part-Time
|
4,963
|
45.1%
|
589
|
52.9%**
|
102
|
63.1%**
|
|
Age 20-24
|
2,569
|
45.4%
|
323
|
54.9%**
|
46
|
56.5%
|
|
First Generation
|
2,164
|
45.4%
|
217
|
54.4%**
|
49
|
62.0%
|
|
Developmental English Placement
|
327
|
45.6%
|
60
|
55.0%
|
16
|
58.8%
|
|
Pell Accepted
|
3,287
|
46.6%
|
660
|
54.1%**
|
123
|
59.7%**
|
|
Developmental Math Placement
|
2,337
|
47.0%
|
426
|
58.1%**
|
79
|
67.1%**
|
N
represents a distinct student count.
* P<.05
**
P<.01
Table
5
Course
Success Rates for the Highest Courses Associated with a Library Instruction
Class, Academic Years 2014/15-2016/17
|
N
|
Success Rate -
All Degree-Seeking Students
|
N
|
Success Rate -
Attended Library Instruction
|
|
Second Semester College English
|
1,568
|
70.8%
|
440
|
74.2%
|
|
First Semester College English
|
2,054
|
71.4%
|
396
|
69.6%
|
|
Public and Private Communication
|
1,692
|
80.3%
|
282
|
80.1%
|
|
Public Speaking
|
732
|
81.8%
|
127
|
78.9%
|
|
College Reading
(Developmental)
|
399
|
80.3%
|
93
|
80.2%
|
N
represents an enrolled course count.
* P<.05
**
P<.01
Table
6
Course
Success Rates for the Highest Courses Associated with a Reference Visit,
Academic
Years 2014/15-2016/17
|
N
|
Success Rate -
All Degree-Seeking Students
|
N
|
Success Rate -
Visited the Reference Desk
|
|
English 131
|
2,054
|
71.4%
|
102
|
85.3%**
|
|
English 132
|
1,568
|
70.8%
|
99
|
85.9%**
|
|
Reading 125
|
399
|
80.3%
|
32
|
96.9%*
|
|
Psychology 131
|
1,626
|
63.8%
|
31
|
77.4%
|
|
Art 130
|
597
|
72.7%
|
30
|
90.0%*
|
N
represents an enrolled course count.
* P<.05
**
P<.01
In
comparison to similar studies that tracked student use of academic libraries to
retention and grades, Soria, Fransen, and Nackerud’s (2013) research at the University of Minnesota
serves as the best example of a study using similar methods when comparing
library instruction and reference visits, though it should be noted that the
University of Minnesota is a selective admissions institution, unlike Lewis
& Clark Community College, which is an open admissions institution.
When
comparing the impact of library instruction upon grades, findings from the
University of Minnesota were similar to those discovered at Lewis & Clark,
with both showing a modest positive impact, though neither study found the
impact to be statistically significant. With respect to reference visits, the
University of Minnesota showed a positive correlation with grades, but without
statistical significance. Findings from Lewis & Clark showed statistically
significant higher grades in four of the five courses measured for students
that visited the reference desk.
Retention
comparisons for both studies found positive statistically significant
correlations between library instruction and student retention. Reference
visits in the University of Minnesota study showed a slightly negative
relationship with retention, though the data were not statistically
significant. Reference visits at Lewis & Clark were found to be positively
correlated with retention for all 10 cohorts studied, with 6 cohorts having a
statistically higher retention rate.
It
is interesting to note that a reference visit had a more significant impact
upon students at Lewis & Clark than for the students in the University of
Minnesota study. Because the setting of a reference visit is a one-on-one
encounter, an opportunity exists for the student to establish a relationship
with the librarian. For community college students at Lewis & Clark, 53% of
which are not prepared for college-level math or English courses, the need to
develop relationships with college personnel outside of the classroom may be
more impactful than for those students at a selective admissions university
like the University of Minnesota.
Another
observation taken from the findings is the higher impact of a reference visit
in comparison to attending a library instruction class for both grades and
retention at Lewis & Clark. Though a relationship may be developed between
a student and a librarian that teaches a library instruction class of 20 or 30
students, the likelihood of this occurrence is smaller than the opportunity for
a student to develop a relationship with a librarian through a reference visit.
Findings from this research would suggest that student proximity to a librarian
is correlated with grades and retention.
In
spite of the positive findings discovered in this study, there are limitations.
Students that visited the reference desk in this study represent a
self-selected sample. These students may be more academically motivated to
achieve higher grades and graduate than their classroom peers that did not
visit the reference desk. Future research into the impact of reference visits
upon grades and retention should consider propensity score matching of students
to reduce the potential for bias associated with student motivation.
Another
limitation of this study is the presumption that all reference desk visits are
equally weighted. The length of time spent during a reference desk visit may
also have a correlational relationship with grades and retention. Future
research should consider grouping reference desk visits by the length of the
interview.
Conclusion
Building
on the findings of this research, Lewis & Clark Community College has
expanded its tracking of students that interact with support services and
co-curricular activities to over 20 points of service, including tutoring,
advising, and participation in student life clubs and activities. The library
has also expanded its data collection by tracking students that check out items
from the collection. As with the current tracking system being used for library
instruction and reference assistance, student IDs will be used to identify
those students that circulate an item from the library. Data assessing the
correlational relationship between student use of the library’s non-digital
collection with grades and retention will be available in the fall semester of
2018. Moving forward, a campaign to proactively share the findings of this
research with faculty, students, and administrators at Lewis & Clark is
currently being planned in hopes of increasing overall student usage of the
library.
Incorporating
the library as a data resource for institutional research has been a goal for
the author of this paper. As a result of the research presented in this
article, the library has become a partner with peer divisions and departments
on campus with retention initiatives. A recent example is Lewis & Clark’s
requirement for accreditation to complete a four-year Quality Initiative to
improve retention for the Higher Learning Commission. Library findings
associated with the research in this paper will serve as a data source in the
Quality Initiative that seeks to explore Tinto’s Student Integration Theory
through student tracking of support services. Quality Initiative findings for
Lewis & Clark will be presented in 2020 at the Higher Learning Commission’s
Persistence and Completion Academy Results Forum.
It
should also be noted that the long-standing legacy of library patron privacy
has not been compromised in this research. No personally identifiable
information has been disclosed for any student tracked. All data are secured
within the institution’s Ellucian student information
system and are only accessible by the Institutional Research office at Lewis
& Clark Community College.
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