The first ALIA Top End Symposium: Powering our Territory

Information literacy at Batchelor Institute

Prue King
Remote area librarian, Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education

This paper gives background information about Batchelor Institute, the students, courses and study mode. Then there is a definition of information literacy and details of information literacy sessions at Batchelor library. Next are details of a research project into students' use of the library. Finally are some conclusions and recommendations for future research.

Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education

Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, situated some 100km south of Darwin, is a tertiary education facility for Indigenous students. It began in the mid-1960s as an annexe of Kormilda College to provide training for Aboriginal teacher aides. In 1974 it was relocated to the old mining town of Batchelor, and in 1982 it became Batchelor College. Since then it has developed into a multi campus independent institute. The main campus is at Batchelor with a second campus opened in Alice Springs in 1990, and later smaller annexes in Tennant Creek, Katherine, Nhulunbuy and Darwin. Batchelor has also established smaller study centres in communities across the Northern Territory, Kununnara and at Thursday Island and Yarrabah in Queensland. Part of the vision of Batchelor Institute is to become an indigenous university and a step towards this, in 1999, was the establishment of Batchelor College as Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education.

Students, courses and study mode

The Indigenous student population come from communities across the Northern Territory and from around Australia. The majority of the students are mature age. They are a mix of community and urban people with increased number of urban students in recent years. Batchelor Institute now offers a wide variety of courses. There are three schools: the school of education and humanities; the school of health and science; and the school of business and community studies. All schools offer courses in VET and higher education from the certificate level to the diploma with a few degree courses in arts and science and more being developed.

Most courses are delivered in what is called 'mixed mode'. This form of study requires students to attend several intensive one or two week workshops at Batchelor or another campus, with the time between workshops spent on further study at the students' communities. It is a method that was developed so students could keep in touch with their communities, but it means most students are only on campus at workshops times, and so time is limited.

Definition of information literacy

Information literacy is defined by the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) as:

'an understanding and set of abilities enabling individuals to recognise when information is needed and have the capacity to locate, evaluate and use effectively the needed information' (CAUL, 2001).

Information literacy sessions

The students coming to Batchelor Institute differ greatly in their information literacy skills. Many students did not complete formal schooling and have not entered a library since leaving school, while others have qualifications at a tertiary level. Effective information literacy sessions must reflect and allow for these differences, so at the Batchelor Institute library we do not have a set library lesson or a library tour that all students 'do' at the beginning of their studies. Instead individual lecturers contact the library and arrange for the groups to come to the library when they are attending workshops. The ideal is for lecturers and librarians to plan the library sessions together. The librarians need to get some idea of the students' skills, to know what specific outcomes are to be met, and what the lecturers envisage happening. This joint planning is a crucial part of delivering an effective information literacy program. The sessions in the library need to be an integrated component of the students' course work and not an added extra if there is time.

The library sessions can take many forms. These include:

• Introduction to the library with explanation of Dewey classification system
• Browsing the shelves
• Using the catalogue
• Searching the internet
• Searching specific data bases
• Commencing research
• Referencing

Library research

In 2002 the library staff conducted research on the Batchelor and Central Australian campuses. The librarians taking part in the research were Andre Burgess, Graeme Shaughnessy, Susan Mills and Prue King. The aims of the research were to

• To find out how students use the library
• To see if there was any change in students use of and attitude towards the library over the course of the academic year
• To look at the relationship between students' courses and students use of information resources

The results of the research were to be used to improve the delivery of information literacy sessions to students of Batchelor Institute and to plan future research. This paper deals with how students use the library and examines any change in use over the academic year.

Profile of students taking part in research

A total of 141 Australian indigenous students took part in the research. The group was comprised of 94 females and 47 males. Of these, 72 attended as part time students, 61 full time and 3 did not specify. The majority of students were mature age with 84 percent, between 20 and 50 years of age. A large proportion of the students, 71 percent were from remote rather than urban communities.

Methodology

The research was in the form of questionnaires completed by the students at the beginning of their academic year (first session), and again at the end of the year (second session. The questionnaire was developed to follow one conducted by Joanne Anderson at Batchelor Institute in 2001. A pilot questionnaire was trialled at the end of 2001 and some adjustments made.

The first session began with an explanation of the research and students signed an agreement to participate with the understanding that they could withdraw at any stage.

The first question sheet, All about me, was to gain a profile of the students including the courses they were studying, previous study and their use of other libraries.

The other three sets of questions were designed to show how students use the library.

• Library use question sheet, consisted of multiple-choice questions relating to when students use the library, with whom, and their feelings about the library. In the multiple choices students could select more than one of the options. At the end of the questions students were asked to make comments about the library.
• Library map, was an A3 size map of the library, Batchelor or Central Australian campus. The students were asked to label the different sections of the library.
• Course work, consisted of a table listing areas or items in the library. Students indicated their use of these by ticking in the columns.

In the second session students were not asked to fill out All about me, but did complete the other three sets of questions Library map, Library use and Course work.

Results

Completion of the questionnaires
It had been planned for students to complete the questionnaires at the beginning and the end of their academic year. Unfortunately, due to staff illness, changes in staff and students' last workshop at one of the main campuses happening early in the second semester, some of the first sessions were not done until May and some of the second sessions were completed in August. This reduced time available for students to develop their library skills. Also student attrition and workshop times meant that more than half the students did not take part in the second session of the questionnaire. Consequently 141 students completed the first session, but only 58 students completed the first and second sessions.

Analysis of results

Results from the Batchelor campus and the Central Australian campus were combined in a database for analysis.

How students use the library
The questionnaires library use, and course work plus the library map and the students' comments indicated how students were using the library.

Responses from library use
Students could tick more than one response in this section. Students came to the library with:

• Lecturer and class group (with both sessions over 70 percent)
• With other students, during class time (both over 50 percent)
• Alone (both over 40 percent)
• With other students, not in class time (around 30 percent)

The times of day students came to the library were:

• During class time (65 percent first session, 71 percent second session)
• After dinner (45 percent, 57 percent)
• After class (40 percent, 57 percent)
• Lunchtime (28 percent, 33 percent)
• Before dinner (12 percent, 14 percent)
• Before class (11 percent, 12 percent)

Students' reasons for coming to the library were:

Over all students came to the library during class time, with or without their lecturer, but significant numbers (45 percent and 57 percent) were accessing the library in the evenings. The main reason for coming to the library was related to study, but 49 percent and 45 percent also came to the library to relax.

Responses from library maps

The students were asked to label a map of the appropriate campus library (Batchelor or Central Australian campus).

The maps were scored as shown in the table below:

The results for the maps indicated that many students were not familiar with the library when they did their first session. In the second session, 74 percent of the students were able to label the maps using at least some library terms. This indicates the students had been spending some time in the library whether in formal information literacy classes, doing research or relaxing.

Responses from course work

In the Course work section of the questionnaire the students were asked to put a tick next to a list of library resources indicating the use of that resource in their course work with their lecturer.

The table below gives the percent of students who indicated they used that resource sometimes or many times.

The resource most students used was the dictionary (66 percent and 83 percent) and over half (57 percent and 72 percent) of the students were using items from the main collection. Students were using the computers to access the catalogue (47 percent and 66 percent) and the internet for study (37 percent and 79 percent) and/or the internet for fun (20 percent and 50 percent). A much smaller percentage of students are using CD-ROMs (17 percent and 14 percent). Also a smaller percentage of students are accessing the encyclopaedias (25 percent and 38 percent). The use of the internet indicates that students are using that to find information when previously they may have used encyclopaedias or CD-ROMs.

Change in student use of the library

141 students completed a first session, but only 58 of these students went on to complete a second session. To make a comparison about the changes in students' use of the library we compared the first session and second session results of those 58 students who completed both.

Changes in responses to Library use questionnaire

Students came to the library with
There was an increase in the number of students saying they came into the library with their lecturer and class group (increased from 59 percent to 72 percent), and a slight increase in the number of students who came to the library with other students during class time (increased from 55 percent to 59 percent). The number of students who came to the library alone (40 percent to 41 percent) stayed virtually the same, and there was a slight decrease in the number of students who came to the library with other students, not in class time (decreased from 31 percent to 28 percent).

The times of day students came to the library
There was some change in the time of day students went to the library. The time they used the library increased for most time slots whether it was during class time (59 percent in the first session to 71 percent in the second session), after dinner (47 percent to 57 percent), before class (3 percent to 12 percent) or before dinner (12 percent to14 percent).

Students' reasons for coming to the library were
The change in responses for the 58 students who did a first and second session was that 'getting information for study' was the main reason and rose slightly from the first session to the second session (72 percent to 81 percent). The reason 'no choice, its part of my course' rose considerably (36 percent in the first session and 64 percent in the second).

Changes in labelling of library maps
The results of the library maps were compared between the results of the 58 students who did a first session and their second session results. There was a large increase in students scoring higher (3's increased 33 percent and 4's increased 14 percent) and a large decrease in students scoring lower (1's decreased 30 percent and 2's decreased 18 percent).

These results show that the students' knowledge of the library and library terms had increased during the year. Unlike the multiple choice questions which asked students to put ticks in a square, the labelling exercise required the student to draw on their knowledge to name the various sections of the library.

Changes in responses to course work questionnaire
In the course work section of the questionnaire 'use' was defined as students ticking 'Yes, sometimes' and 'Yes, many times' when asked if they use a particular resource in their course work.

To look any change in responses for the same group of students the results for the students who completed a first and second session (58 students) were compared.

Although the increases weren't as large as between the results of all the students who did a first session and the results of the second session, there are still the same patterns of increase. There are large increases for the use of the internet for study (41 percent increase), the internet for fun (29 percent increase), the library catalogue (19 percent increase), the reference section (17 percent increase), dictionaries (16 percent increase), magazines (15 percent increase), and the main collection (14 percent increase). There is a moderate increase in the use of encyclopedias (12 percent increase), the fiction section (9 percent increase), maps and posters (8 percent increase), and newspapers (7 percent increase) and the use of Journals (2 percent increase). Again the use of CD-ROMs (0 percent increase) remained unchanged.

Concluding comments

How students use the library
Over all students came to the library during class time, with or without their lecturer, but significant numbers (45 percent and 57 percent) were accessing the library in the evenings. The main reason for coming to the library was related to study (73 percentand 79 percent), but some (49 percent and 45 percent) still came to the library to relax.

The resource most students used was the dictionary (66 percent and 83 percent). Over half (57 percent and 72 percent) of the students were using items from the Main Collection, but fewer students were using the computers to access the catalogue (47 percent and 66 percent). This means that 34 percent of the 58 students sampled still did not know how to or did not find it necessary to access the catalogue. Students were using the internet for study (37 percent and 79 percent) and the internet for fun (20 percent and 50 percent). A smaller percentage of students were accessing the encyclopaedias (25 percent and 38 percent). Also fewer students were using CD-ROMs (17 percent and 14 percent). The use of the internet indicates that students are using that to find information when previously they may have used encyclopaedias or CD-ROMs.

Change in students use
There was a slight increase in percentage of students coming to the library with their lecturer in class time, but also an increase in the number of students using the library in the evening. By the end of the year more students were seeing the library as a place of study with most students indicating they used the library for study. There was a big increase in the use of Internet for study and fun over the year. Although there was an increase in using the catalogue it is a concern that over 30 percent indicated they still did not use it. This may indicate a need to concentrate on use of catalogue and the internet to help students locate information for their studies.

Considerations for future research

• Future research into catalogue use - action research into presenting lessons, a survey in difficulties students experience, or further observation of students' use.
• Library map - useful because it was a task that called on students' own knowledge, and not just ticking a box.
• Research across campuses - problems and advantages. Problems were experienced, because the number of variables were increased, such as different library maps to be labelled, and more staff delivering and involved in the marking of the questionnaires. There were also major advantages in having several librarians contributing to the design, delivery and reporting of the research.

References

Anderson, J. unpublished research at Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, Batchelor, 2001.

Bruce, , The seven faces of information literacy. Austlib Press, Adelaide, circa 1997

Council of Australian University Librarians Information literacy standards, CAUL, Canberra, 2001