College and Research Libraries FRANK · F. KUO A Comparison of Six Versions of Science Library Instruction This study was designed to investigate the instructional effectiveness of six methods of library instruction. University students were ran- domly assigned to treatment groups, received verbal instruction with/ without supplementary visual illustrations and readings. Results in- dicated that the self-paced audiovisual tutorial study followed by a summary and question/ answer session was the most effective way of increasing student achievement on the ninety-item objective test de- signed to measure the comprehension and retention of the content. A WIDE RANGE OF LffiRARY ORIENTATION has been reported in books and journals but there is little empirical evidence available to serve as a guide for a li- brarian to refer to in selecting visuals and media which will be most effective in facilitating student achievement of specific objectives.1 A randomized block design was em- ployed to investigate the relative effec- tiveness of different types of library in- struction as compared with the conven- tional library lecture at the Science Di- vision of the Portland State University Library. METHOD Subjects. The subjects for this study were students enrolled in summer classes at Portland State University. More than 200 subjects were randomly assigned to seven groups. Treatments. In order to facilitate comparisons, only one or two variables were varied in the treatments described below. Conventional Library Lecture Dr. Kuo is media librarian, Portland State University, Oregon. (Group L). Students in this group par- ticipated in a live lecture given by a sci- ence librarian who also prepared and narrated the script used in the other treatments. The live lecture covered ba- sically the same contents as the script and in many instances examples were cited almost verbatim. No visual aids other than printed materials (reference books and hand-outs) were used to com- plement the librarian's oral lecture. Time was limited to one class period of fifty minutes. Audio Instruction (Group A). Stu- dents in this group listened to the audio- taped instruction via headsets without using any visuals. The total length of the narration was forty-six minutes. The s.ame recorded narration was used in all other treatments. Slide/ Audiotape Instruction (Group S ) . A total of 179 color slides were pro- duced to illustrate the audiotape in- struction. Students in this group viewed the slides synchronized to the tape for automatic advancement at a predeter- mined time. Television Instruction ( Group AT). In addition to notebooks, students in this group independently studied a film- / 287 288 I College & Research Libraries • July 1973 strip duplicated photographically from the slides used in Group S. A cassette tape with audible change signals instead of an open reel tape with inaudible sig- nals was used. The notebook included some illustrations, sample pages, anno- tations and comparison tables of the materials covered in the audiotape in- struction to help clarify information. Students were allowed to spend as much tirrie as needed by themselves in their spare time without any ·additional as- sistance from librarians. Audiovisual Instruction (Group A V). Students in this group prepared them- selves by 'the audiotutorial method be- fore joining a fifty-minute· follow-up session led by a librarian. The librarian used overhead transparencies copied di- rectly from the notebooks to reinforce the main points and also answered ques- tions asked by the students, thus giving both the librarian and students oppor- tunities to interact with one another. Criterion Test. A ninety-item objec- tive test was administered to all groups immediately after the treatments. The control group (Group C) drawn at ran- dom from the population received no library instruction at all but took the same criterion test. The test was prepared by two persons who were familiar with the subject mat- ter and test measurement. The Spear- man-Brown Prophecy Formula reliabili- ty co-efficient for the odd-even test items was .80. The test items were evenly distributed to three parts: Part I -Card Catalog (thirty items); Part 11-Readers' Guide, Dictionaries, and Encyclopedias ( thirty items); and Part III-Biological Ab- stracts and Science . Citation Index ( thir- ty items). The means for the control group were 12.4 (Part I); 5.5 (Part II); and 1.7 (Part III) out of thirty possible points. It was reasonable to assume that subjects in this sample had not much li- brary knowledge of Parts II and III be- fore the treatments. · In order to discourage gtiessing, a pen- alty was applied for wrong answers by using the correction formula: ccR-W I (n-1),'' where c'R" is the number of questions answered correctly; 'W" is the number of questions · ab.swered incor- rectly; and c'n" is the 'number of answer choices for an item. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The summary of the analysis of vari- ance of all groups is given in Table i. The analysis indicates that significant differences exist among the means of all groups ( F = 53.2, d.f. ~ 6/98, p · < .001). Comparisons · among the individual means of the six treatment groups and one control group by Duncan's New Multiple Range Test were further con- ducted to determine the effectiveness of the various treatments in improving stu- dent .achievement on the criterion tests.2 The observed means, each b~sed upon fifteen observations are rearranged in order of magnitude in Table 2 for sta- tistical analysis. Analysis of the differences between means indicated . that all treatment TABLE 1 ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE FOR THE RANDOMIZED GROUPS DESIGN Source of Variation Sumo£ Squares d.£. Mean Square F Between groups 25,200.51 6 4,200.0& 53.16° Within groups 7,769.50 98 79.28 Total . 32,970.01 104 0 p < .001 Comparison of Versions I 289 TABLE 2 DuNcAN's NEw MULTIPLE. RANcE TEST APPLIED TO THE DIFFERENCEs BETWEEN SEVEN MEANS (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) Shortest Significant c · A L TV s AT AV Ranges Means 18.7 38.1 39.1 41.6 48.3 60.4 70.4 "= .01° "= .05 ( 1 )C 18.7 19.4 20.4 22.9 29.6 41.7 51.7 R2 = 8.58 6.46 (2)A 38.1 1.0 3.5 10.2 22.3 32.3 Ra = 8.92 6.78 (3) L 39.1 2.5 9.2 21.3 31.3 R. = 9.18 7.02 (4)TV 41.6 6.7 18.8 28.8 R5 = 9.36 7.20 (5)S 48.3 12.1 22.1 Re = 9·.50 7.31 (6)AT 60.4 10.0 R1= 9.63 7.43 (7)AV 70.4 Rs= 9.73 7.48 c A L TV s AT AV 0 0 0 Any two means not underscored by the same line are significantly different at the .01 level. 0 Any two means underscored by the same line are not significantly different at the .01 level. groups which received various methods of library instruction achieved signifi- cantly higher scores on the criterion tests than the control group. The results also indicated that neither the conventional library lecture (Group L) nor the televised instruction (Group AT) was consistently more effective in facilitating student achievement in scores than the oral instruction without a librarian (Group A) or visual illustra- tions (Group S). The fact that visual illustrations shown on printed books or 22 inch monitor screens were too small to be perceived clearly by all students may be attributed to nonsignificant dif- ferences. Another possible explanation may be that in the audio instruction there was no obscure visual stimuli to distract attention from verbal informa- tion received through earphones. The slide/ audiotape method (Group S) was found to be more effective than audio instruction and conventional li- brary lecture at the .01 level of signifi- cance and than the television instruc- tion at the .05 level of significance. Stu- dents who viewed both the slides and the videotape commented on the vivid- ness and clarity of the color slides and the loss of visual quality as a result of television transmission. It was noted that for a given amount of time, un- intelligible visual stimuli might have impeded rather than facilitated the sub- ject's concentration in absorbing infor- mation from verbal instruction. The data obtained in this study coincide with the results of Dwyer's study. 3 Students receiving the audio tutorial instruction (Group AV) achieved sig- nificantly higher scores than did stu- dents receiving the slide/ audiotape in- struction (Group S). One possible ex- planation may be that since the slides were uniformly externally paced, stu- dents did not have adequate time to pay attention to the details of the illustra- tions. Students in the seH-study group were able to set their own learning pace, to review the parts where they experi- enced difficulty, and had sufficient time to absorb additional information. Contrary to Kirk's findings, Group A V in this study was found to be superi- or to the independent study group with- out attending the follow-up lecture-dis- cussion session. 4 However, it should be noted that the Group AT in this study did not do exercises, as in Kirk's. The fact that students in Group A V had op- portunities to ask questions of the li- brarian and vice versa may account for the success of this treatment. Further 290 I College & Research Libraries • July 1973 research is needed to study the human variables in library orientation. CoNCLUSIONs Results of this study lead to the fol- lowing conclusions: 1. The use of certain types of visuals to complement oral instruction do not automatically improve student achieve- ment in the criterion test, as demon- strated in Groups L and TV. 2. When the identical illustrations were presented via television and slides, the slide, but not the television presenta- tion, was found to be more effective than the audio presentation alone. 3. An increase in visibility of illustra- tions and intelligibility of information by means of the illustrated notebook also produced a corresponding gain in the degree of comprehension and reten- tion, if a student had sufficient time to assimilate the information, as shown in the self-paced instruction of Group AT. 4. Even though sufficient time was available for studying, not all students comprehended the illustrated materials equally well. The use of a librarian to clarify the ambiguous points and to fo- cus students' attention to relevant visual cues by means of overhead transparen- cies in an externally paced instruction (Group A V) was more effective than the self-paced audio tutorial instruction without the librarian's assistance (Group AT). REFERENCES 1. Barbara H. Phipps, "Library Instruction for the Undergraduate," CRL 29:411- 23 (Sept. 1968); Patricia A. Henning, "Research on Integrated Library Instruction," Drexel Li- brary Quarterly 7:339·-41 (July and Oct. 1971 ). 2. Allen L. Edwards, Experimental Design in Psychological Research (New York: Holt, 1964)' p.136. 3. Francis M. Dwyer, "When Visuals Are Not the Message," Educational Broadcasting Re- view 2:38-43 (Feb. 1968). 4. Thomas Kirk, "A Comparison of Two Meth- ods of Library Instruction for Students in Introductory Biology," CRL 32:465-74 (Nov. 1971). • l ·I 1 1