FINIDNGS post 4: Final results and usage

In this round of analysis, we had some new metrics of library usage which weren’t available to researchers in the first round of the project. I’ve already blogged about one of them – overnight usage – and there’s more on that later in this post, but first I’d like to talk about the other three. These are – the number of e-resources accessed (as distinct from the hours spent logged into e-resources); the number of e-resources accessed 5 or more times, and the number of e-resources accessed 25 or more times. These metrics show how many of Huddersfield’s 240-odd e-resources, which range from large journal platforms and databases down to individual journal subscriptions, a student has logged into during the year, once, at least five times or at least 25 times.

You’ll already have seen these three dimensions in the posts on our demographic and subject-based analysis. But now I’m going to see whether there’s a relationship between use on these dimensions and final degree outcome, using the same methodology as Phase 1 of the project. Figure 1 shows the results.

Figure 1: Usage and final degree outcome

As you can see, there are quite a few statistically significant differences for the e-resource dimensions. Most of these are small effects, but the difference between a first and a third is medium sized for the number of e-resources accessed, and the number accessed five or more times. This is a really interesting finding. It suggests that breadth of reading – indicated by using a number of different e-resources – might be a particularly important factor in degree success, and leads to all kinds of questions about how the library might support students in reading widely.

You can see that we’ve found a difference for the percentage of overnight usage as well! Weirdly, this only pops up in relation to the difference between 2.i and 2.ii degrees, and it’s a miniscule effect. I’m inclined to dismiss this as a blip and go with our previous finding that there isn’t a significant difference between grades in terms of their overnight usage: with the same caveat that our model is different from the one used by Manchester Met, and thus perhaps not as able to identify nuanced differences.

2 thoughts on “FINIDNGS post 4: Final results and usage”

  1. “the difference between a first and a third is medium sized for the number of e-resources accessed, and the number accessed five or more times. This is a really interesting finding. It suggests that breadth of reading – indicated by using a number of different e-resources – might be a particularly important factor in degree success, and leads to all kinds of questions about how the library might support students in reading widely.”

    I am curious, was Summon in place during the study? If so wouldn’t Summon play a big part in exposing the students to a large number of e-resources? I suppose pre-Summon most people would stick to their favourite databases (Jstor perhaps) and the truly diligent student would know/try more. But with Summon in play wouldn’t that level the playing field since even the weakest student would be basically database/eresource agnostic.

    Number of eresources accessed 5 or more times being significant is interesting, does this indicate more focus as in someone realizing that these sources are worth concentrating on as opposed to a weaker student who is sent all over the place by Summon with a wider distribution, or does it simply reflect a better student using more frequently (but with similar distributions).

    Just wildly speculating here.

  2. Thanks for the great comment, Aaron!

    Yes, Summon was in use and you’re right that this will have increased the visibility of a range of e-resources to all students. But we’re still seeing a big difference in the number of resources used, and the number used repeatedly, between students with firsts and thirds. So clearly the less successful students are not taking full advantage of this increased visibility. My suspicion is that it’s probably something to do with reading lists, and how far students explore the literature beyond the ‘core’ reading, although we don’t yet have a way to test this.

    Your second point had me scratching my head, and I have gone and looked again at the data. Sure enough, there are strong correlations between the amount of time spent using e-resources and the number of resources accessed repeatedly (and the number accessed overall, incidentally). So I think your second explanation is more likely – the successful students are using more frequently overall, and this is reflected in their repeat use of certain resources. But again, I’d want to test this a bit more thoroughly before making any strong assertions.

    Another interesting question that this raises: given the strong correlation between number of e-resources accessed and hours spent using e-resources, and given that both are related to final grade, which of the two factors is actually more important in the student’s final outcome? Is it the time spent logged into e-resources, or the number of different resources used? I think we probably have an instinctive reaction to that, but it should be possible to test it empirically as well. Maybe one for phase 3….!

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