Nov 2010 Exploring barriers to Foundation Degree student use of online information retrieval in three partner colleges HELP-CETL Mini Teaching Fellowship Award Continuity Award Amanda Isaac, Petroc Karen Foster, Yeovil College

The project Aims Investigate information literacy skills of Foundation Degree students, Identify recommendations for LRC staff to support the development of information literacy skills in relation to barriers experienced by students to using University of Plymouth and Bournemouth University e-resources. Objectives To establish how learners’ perceptions of confidence in IT skills might relate to the perceived difficulty they had in making effective use of university e-resources.

The sample group 3 groups of Early Years learners from Yeovil, Petroc & South Devon The majority of these learners (around two thirds) had entered HE with a level 3 vocational qualification Our results were based on only the learners who had completed Confidence Logs in Year 2 as well as Year 1 (37)

Methodology Learners completed Confidence Logs at start and end of both Year 1 and Year 2 Focus groups in Year 1 and Year 2, to give better qualitative data Results split by age groups 18-25, 26-35, 36-45,

Universities pay a lot of money to provide access to e-resources for students. But do the students in a college setting use these resources? What barriers do the student perceive they have to using these resources? Do the university get value for money? Do they get a good deal or no deal?

Positive statements The students said that there is reliable information on university portals ‘Can’t trust information just because it is on the Internet’ “when you use Metalib you assume it is (reliable”) ‘The information is reliable (on BU portal’) ‘Yeah you look at the web address and see that it’s an official site or a trusted site before you even bother going on it’ Student also increased their confidence in their ability to assess the reliability of information, during the 2 year study. Overall at the start of their course around 24% said they were confidence or very confident in assessing the reliability of online information, by the end of year 2 this became around 66%.

Positive statements The students said that it is good when their tutor expects online resources to be used as part of the assignment criteria “it needs to be linked to whether it is a necessity for us to use it (Metalib”) “…link sessions using metalib to coincide to when we actually have to write essay would be very useful”. It would be better to do LR sessions alongside the work we have to do, the assignments, to link them into the assignments coming up’. ‘It would help me to use it if the tutor made us’

Positive statements The students said that there is a large variety of resources available through university portals, including journals & e-books “I Like the variety of e-books on BU” ‘I think that when you’re doing an assignment you should read the reference journals so I go on there to have a look to see if there are any journals available and try to stick a reference in there somewhere. ‘I like to read online, I love to turn a page online, I use the e-books at Plymouth’ ‘I use it (the portal), as I have to use a range of resources’

Positive statements The students said that you get a large breadth of information using online databases “the thing is with the articles on metalib you actually can see results from research and not just in the books” ‘I’ve stopped using Google, and use e-resources instead. Intute or whatever, childhood databases’ ‘The Internet is good. E-resources are better. I’m glad you told us not to use wikipedia’ “the thing is with Metalib that it just takes really a lot of time to learn……..but once you have learnt it is really useful. It takes time.”

Positive statements Our experience showed that once taught how to find e-books though the portals these became popular and well used During the focus groups at the end of the 2nd year the learners were asked about online resources and they focused very heavily on e-books (both UCY and NDC students), they spoke enthusiastically about access to e-books with no negative feedback. ‘I like to read online, I love to turn a page online, I use the e-books at Plymouth’ ‘Like the variety of e-books on BU’ ‘I just use e-books mostly (through University of Plymouth)’

Positive statements That you can have on campus and off campus access to the university resources We presented at National cofhe conference this year, and asked the participations about the barriers and positives to using e-resources. The feedback indicated that 24/7 access is a key driver amongst teaching and library staff, to encouraging learners to using e-resources. Particularly as many foundation degree programmes are part time and aimed at those in employment, particularly so in our research group of early years and nurse practitioners. HEFCE stats indicate that over 65% of foundation degree learners are over the age of 21 on stating the qualification. Thus we could assume that may of these people have families, work and other commitments on their time, therefore access to resources out of normal college working hours is critical to studying for this cohort of learners.

Positive statements Using online and university digital resources helps students to develop independent research skills At the start of the course 63% of the group said they felt confident or very confident in using the Internet for research, at the end 92% felt confident or very confident. “I got Google search quite good, I find what I need their now” “Sometimes it is hard to find something and other times it is easy!”

Positive statements Using the e-resources will help students gain better marks in assignments and helps with progression to the top up year At Petroc learners are told this by their tutors and actively encouraged to use the e-resources from Plymouth. This has certainly helped students find a reason to persist and overcome their barriers to using the e-resources. The focus group feedback included the comment: “you can’t write a degree level essay with out pushing further and getting different resources”

Positive statements The learning resource / library staff help students develop the skills required to access, search and assess information. At the end of the 2nd year around 25% of students said the library staff would be the person they would ask for help in their assignments. This is an increase from the start of the course when 15% said LRC staff. Personal tutor and friends remained the highest. Confidence log comments included: “There is always someone at college to ask for help” ‘The staff is very helpful and most of the times they are able to help and give me some clue where to search or how I may find some thing’ ‘I need to use them (the lrc staff) more efficiently though’

Positive statements We appreciate the access students have to very expensive resources that colleges could not afford In library forums and feedback session the participates have said that access to the university resources provides their students with far more information than the college could provide alone. For example theory they do not need to buy text books as many e-books are available through the university. “the thing is with Metalib that it just takes really a lot of time to learn……..but once you have learnt it is really useful. It takes time.”

Negative statements Low confidence in IT skills holds learners back in making effective use of the wealth of information sources available to them through university e- resources. ‘My confidence with IT is low and affected using the resources’ Lack of IT skills does have a bearing on using the resources’ ‘In inductions there were large groups and it was easy to fall behind, especially if you were unconfident with computers’ “Not made clear at the beginning how much IT skills I would need, I would have done an IT course first” “...a lot of people are not very confident on computers so they are just going to say, that is a barrier, and I’m not even going there” Only 33% of our year olds were ‘very confident’ in their general IT skills, at the end of their 2nd year

Negative statements Learners are often reluctant to put enough time and effort into research before writing. “They like to use books” quote as feedback from UPC Exchange of Experience Day workshop with learning resource staff (Feb 09) Focus groups comments: ‘Tricky juggling family and work commitments’ ‘Finding it hard to make up the lack of educational experience’ Search engines are simple in class, but later not so easy. It’s easier to come to the library.’ ‘It’s too much to think about when you’re trying to write an essay’ ‘Yeah before you know it you’ve spent 2 hours just faffing around and you haven’t actually done anything’ I find Metalib (University of Plymouth portal) too time consuming”.

Negative statements Multiple usernames and passwords are perceived as obstacles, and Athens/Shibboleth authentication requirements add to the confusion ‘I get frustrated with the passwords’ ‘I get confused over my password’ ‘We need the same password for everything’. “No more signing in so you haven’t got it keep remembering”…….” ” You should be accessing straight way so you are not putting barriers into it”…..” Even at the end of year 2, the concept of authentication systems to allow access still seems to elude many, although only 3% admit they don’t know what Athens is. 16% say they don’t know what an online database is.

Negative statements The concept of ‘reliability’ of information is difficult to grasp, so portal information sources that need less evaluation are not a big enticement for learners. ‘ Would like extra help in how to discover if the site is reliable’. ‘Once I started using it (the Internet) for research I did not feel so confident’ Only 55% of our year olds finished Year 2 saying they were either confident or very confident in assessing the reliability of information they find on the Internet? (66% for all ages together)

Negative statements Learners have poor visualisation and understanding of the structure of digitally stored information, making e-resources hard to search effectively Quote from upc Exchange of Experience day: “ if you don’t understand what you are looking at or looking for, then you will not be able to understand it effectively” Focus group comments made it very clear that there was still confusion about authentication, and about the relating usernames and passwords. Smith and At end of Yr 2 16% percent did not know what a database was. But this was a good improvement on the end of Year 1 when 49% did not know what a database was. “I do get confused with which resources are on which site “ (referring to using both college VLE and University portal resources)

Negative statements Learners often prefer using the web to find information, rather than searching subscribed e-resources (but don’t know how to construct effective searches, or how to use the information they find) The Ciber research report on behaviour of web users, from UCL in Jan 2008, which stated “…people exhibit a strong tendency towards shallow, horizontal, ‘flicking’ behaviour in digital libraries. Power browsing and viewing appear to be the norm for all.” (Rowlands & Nicholas, 2008 p 19) Focus groups comments: ‘Once I started using it (the Internet) for research I did not feel so confident’ ‘Search engines are simple in class, but later not so easy. It’s easier to come to the library.’ ‘I use Google as it’s easy and it’s what I know’

Negative statements The students lack understanding of body of subject knowledge and academic research, and how these underpin their subject, how these are added to, and should inform their assignments as well as professional practice. ‘Once I started using it (the Internet) for research I did not feel so confident’ During the focus groups the learners were asked about online resources and they focused very heavily on e-books at both colleges. They had to be reminded of e-journals and databases. By end of Yr2 66% were either VC (19%) or C (47%) in assessing the reliability of info, compared to only 24% C and 0% VC at start – however the remaining 33% still only had Some Confidence

Negative statements Age may affect IT skills, and this can affect how they are able to access portal information. Year 1 report - assumptions should not be made that even if young people do use the internet all the time their IT skills will be good and/or transferable. This age group are similar to the ‘Google generation’ students who feel at home in the digital environment but as recent reports have shown, tend to run ‘quick and dirty’ searches on the internet, flick through results without looking in depth (Brophy 2004; Rowlands, 2008). In the year old age group, as with their general IT skills, the learners have found the skills they need to be more elusive than then they first perceived and they are finding research more difficult than they expected, their skills appear to not be as good as they thought They may have less confidence to start with, but have a bit more life experience, and are perhaps more prepared to listen and learn than the younger students. They have either learnt more quickly what they have been shown in learning resources workshops, or have realised their skills are pretty good and feel they can use them effectively.

Negative statements Learners have to learn to become independent researchers – friends provide good peer support, but it may be more helpful to ask Learning Resources staff about information sources! Barrier is shyness in return to learn students, not sure who can help Particularly our young sample (18-25 year olds) preferred to ask a friend for help, even on day one when they did not have a friend and did not know their knowledge! Our older sample year olds were open to support from everyone from day one.

Negative statements University portals can be non-intuitive to navigate and difficult to learn to use. ‘I use all of them (UoP portal and college e-resources), but most of the time I can’t find what ‘I’m looking for ? Wording the search is hard. Then I go to Google’. ‘I don’t use them as much as I ought to – I feel jinxed when I use them ! I use Google more than I ought to’. ‘There’s loads on there (portal), but finding it is impossible’ ‘I am not confident in using the online resources’ “If I type in the key words and stuff and I don’t get anything” (using Metalib) “I find Metalib really hard to find and hard to find what I was looking for. I tend to do my own research now (Google)”

& If you would like a full copy of both the 1 st year and 2 nd year reports please contact either Amanda or Karen on the above s