Traditional use patterns?
An analysis of high school students' use of libraries and information resources
The Authors
Niels Ole Pors, The Royal School of Library and Information Science, Copenhagen, Denmark
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the main findings of a nation-wide survey of Danish high school students and their use of libraries and digital resources. The presentation of the main findings includes different organisations of the data in clusters and user types. This organisation and analysis gives indications of the factors that influence the high school students' use of libraries and digital resources and it also explains the preferences and expectations the students have.
Design/methodology/approach – The study was conducted as a nation-wide online survey to a sample of high schools in Denmark. The data collection was conducted in several steps. A sample of high schools was selected and asked if they would accept the opportunity to participate in the study. If they agreed, the director or a person appointed by the director selected two to three classes of students. The students received a link to the online questionnaire and completed it during a class hour. The result was 998 usable and valid responses. There was no way to secure a true random sample, but the sample is very much like the student population as it is registered in statistical yearbooks in relation to characteristics such as type of high school, gender and geographical distribution.
Findings – The findings indicate that traditional demographic factors alone cannot explain all of the variability in the students' information behaviour. Type of high school, gender and study year influence the use of libraries and digital resources but it also becomes clear that perceptions of the study and study preferences influence the information behaviour. It is also indicated that a correlation exists between the amount of use of libraries and digital resources. Further, it is indicated that high school students possess a rather traditional view of the importance of the different services and facilities offered by libraries.
Research limitations/implications – The limitations of the research are inherent in the methodology. First of all, one only gets answers in relation to the stated questions and statements. This implies that the students' use of other information grounds, horizons, social technologies are omitted from the study. It is probably valid to argue that the data collection methods bias the results in a “conservative” way.
Originality/value – The research is the first nationwide investigation into different aspects of high school students' use of libraries and information resources in Denmark.
Article Type:
Research paper
Keyword(s):
Students; School libraries; Public libraries; Information resources management; Perception; Denmark.
Journal:
New Library World
Volume:
109
Number:
9/10
Year:
2008
pp:
431-443
Copyright ©
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN:
0307-4803
Introduction
This paper reports the findings of a comprehensive national survey investigating high schools students and their use of information resources and libraries. The background of the research was cooperation with the National Library Authority in Denmark starting in 2005 with an investigation into students at universities and other higher educational institutions. This research aroused much interest and some of the main findings influenced the national strategy for library and network development.
During the last decade, a strong effort has been made to establish, promote and develop library and information facilities at different types of high schools in Denmark. There are three types of high schools. There is the general one. It is the traditional pathway to study at universities. There is a business oriented type of high school and it is the traditional pathway to study at the Business universities or other business related higher educational institutions. Finally, there is a technical oriented type of high school. The students from this type of high school often take shorter further education or they become skilled artisans in industry or commerce. After graduation from a high school, the students have spend at least 12 years in the school system and they have some form of entry either to further theoretical education at higher educational institutions or universities, or they have the opportunity to take a more practical oriented education. Further, just a few years ago these types of education went through a reform. One of the points or issues in the reform was the development of study skills and more independent learning strategies.
It is of interest to investigate how students use libraries and digital information resources in pursuit of both private and educational interests and how they interact with the whole system of learning support. This paper explores aspects of this large problem area. The paper can be seen as another piece of information in the growing body of research into young people's and students' information behaviour. According to Wilson's (1999) definition, information behaviour is “those activities a person may engage in when identifying their own need for information, searching for information and using or transferring that information”. During the last decade there has been a growing interest in young people's use of libraries, digital resources and social technologies. Some of the research has the background of the library profession's worries concerning a library by-pass or educators' worries about uncritical and superficial use of the internet (De Rosa, 2005; Estabrook and Rainie, 2007). A large research literature exists on different aspects of student information behaviour. This research indicates that student information behaviour is connected to their study subject and the number of years they have studied (Kerins et al., 2004). Other research indicates that it is difficult for students to evaluate the quality of resources found on the internet. (Waldman, 2003). It is important to note that an enormous variability exists among students depending inter alia on their study behaviour and probably also their psychological profile or mental disposition. Students prefer general search engines and it seems that they have difficulties distinguishing between internet resources and library resources. Teachers recommendations, and how they put forward requirements and demands, are very important for students' use of information. A growing interest in theoretical underpinning of research results through means of theories related to inter alia affordance theory and satisfying theory appears to give satisfactory explanations of at least some of the phenomena under study (Prabha et al., 2007; Sadler and Given, 2007)
A study of university students and students at other higher education institutions formed the model for the research into high school students (Pors, 2005, 2006a, 2006b). Both the previous study and this one have elicited information about behaviour and perceptions in relation to libraries, network resources and information literacy. They also both elicited information about study styles and priorities in relation to fulfilment of both private and educational information needs. In most cases, the survey questions were approximately the same for the two studies.
The study of the university students confirmed previous existing research that study topic, study year, gender and other demographic factors had a significant influence on the information behaviour and the perceptions of information, information resources and libraries (Case, 2006). However, the more traditional demographic factors failed to explain the great variety in the information behaviour. Different types of segmentation were used to form clusters based on students' perception and behaviour (Rowlands and Nicholas, 2008). The results of some of these deeper analyses were that the students obviously had very different mental dispositions to use information in relation to their studies and it was also stipulated that the students' perceptions of the requirements had a huge influence on their information behaviour. Another result was that students with a high use of internet-related resources also used the traditional library resources more than others. The study also indicated that information behaviour, including study behaviour, took many forms and implications are, of course, pertinent in relation to pedagogical forms in information literacy teaching but also in relation to the interaction between physical spaces and information spaces. In many ways, the study gave the same types of results as the rather scarce research into the relationship between personality factors, learning styles and information seeking strategies (Heinström, 2003, 2006).
The same types of questions and issues were also in the centre of the investigation into high school students and their information behaviour. This study is both a descriptive and exploratory investigation. The main purpose of the paper is to investigate the combined use of traditional library resources and quality assured net resources and tentatively explain the variability in use patterns in relation to demographic factors including perceptions of own study behaviour and perceptions of information literacy. Another topic that is investigated is the importance high school students place on different services and facilities offered by the public library system.
Methodology
The survey of high school students was conducted as an online survey. The survey consisted of over 100 questions and statements in different areas. The areas concerned the following:
- Uuse or non use of the educational library including use frequency and different types of use patterns;
- use or non use of the public library including use frequency and different types of use patterns;
- perceptions of information literacy teaching;
- use or non use of information resources on the internet including search machines, relevant portals and other types of study related information resources;
- perceptions about own study behaviour and preferences;
- measures of satisfaction with different aspects of both types of libraries; and
- the perceived significance of the public library's different service provisions.
The survey was pre-tested on 40 high school students from a general high school. Randomly, every second high school in the country was identified and a letter was sent to the head of the school asking him or her to appoint one teacher to get a couple of classes engaged in the investigation by giving the students a link to the online survey. It was also requested that the students should complete the survey during one of their class room hours.
Approximately, half of the high schools decided to participate, which meant that over 40 different high schools answered in a positive way. The distribution of students and types of high schools in the sample do not differ much from the distribution in the population according to information from the National Bureau of Statistics. However, it is important to emphasise that the sample is not a traditional random sample in a statistical sense. It is a convenience sample implying that the results from the investigation ought to be taken as preliminary. In total, 998 high school students delivered valid responses. All the data has been through statistical testing even if the sample is described as a convenience sample. However, the tests have been conducted to establish strengths of associations and to indicate the possible degree of significance. The employed tests are chi square and eta and the p – level was set to 0.05.
The paper outlines the influence of demographic factors on the use of libraries and digital resources and it further investigates the high school students preferences in relation to a services offered by the public libraries.
Findings and analysis
The analysis of the demographic factors such as type of high school, gender, study year and degree of urbanization made it clear, that it would be interesting to analyse the data especially in relation to the use or non use of physical libraries.
From the data, four groups of library use can be formed:
- a group of students using both their educational library and one or more public libraries;
- another group that only uses the educational library and not the public library;
- a third group only uses the public library; and
- the students in the last group state that they do not use either type of library.
The group that uses both types of libraries has an over-representation of students from the general high school and the group also has an over-representation of female students. The group that consists of students only using the high school libraries has an over-representation of students from the business high schools and the technical high schools and the group also consists of more male students than the previous group. The group of students only using the public library has an over-representation of female students attending the general high school. The group that states library avoidance has an over-representation of students from the business and technical schools and the group consists of a majority of male students.
The most striking feature related to the four groups is probably that the amount of library use increases very much during the high school period. The group that states it does not use the physical library decreases very much from year 1 to year 3 of study and the proportions of students stating they only use one library also decrease.
A preliminary analysis of the data indicated that high school students do not bypass the libraries. Only 15 per cent of the students state that they do not use a physical library. Nearly half of the students use both types of libraries. High school students from the general high schools have a much more intensive use of physical libraries than students from the other two types of libraries. They are also much more oriented towards public libraries than the other groups (see Table I).
The high school program is a three years program and library use increases throughout the three years. It is probably not a surprising result but the underlying figures are rather interesting. It shows that the proportion of students who use both types of libraries increase from 39 per cent in the first year to 64 per cent in the third and final year and, if looking at the proportion of students that claim that they do not use the physical library at all, this proportion declines from 18 per cent in the first year to 6 per cent in the final year of study. The proportion of students who only use the public library declines from 21 per cent in the first year to 13 per cent in the last. The similar proportions for students who only use the educational library are less marked – both shows a decrease from 23 per cent to 17 per cent. The use of the physical library increases quite a lot during the students' period of study in the high school system. The use of libraries becomes simply more extensive probably due to study requirements. This pattern applies to both female and male students. It also applies to all types of high school.
Gender plays a very significant role in relation to library use. Female students use the libraries much more than male students and this statement applies to all types of high school students.
A look at the students in the general high school reveals that 58 per cent of the females versus 49 per cent of the male students use both types of libraries. Five per cent of the female students state that they do not use a library in contrast to 12 per cent of the male students. Female students tend to have used the public library as their only library more than male students – 25 per cent versus 21 per cent, but the male students tend to use the educational library as their only library more than the female students – 18 per cent versus 12 per cent. It is exactly the same pattern that emerges from an analysis of gender differences in the two other groups of students from the Business high schools and the Technical high schools. A multivariate analysis controlling for interaction between the demographic variables does not change the pattern and the preliminary conclusions.
The overall pattern is that study year, gender and type of library all have a huge influence on the use of libraries. Study year appears to be the most influential predictor of the amount of library use. On looking at the use patterns an interesting picture emerges. The use pattern for first and second year students are rather similar and the changes and increase appears from the second to the third study year. This correlates with the study plans and the task assignments, because all high school students have more comprehensive task assignments in the third year than they do in the first two years of studying in high schools. This indicates that the amount of library use is heavily influenced by the students' perception of the requirements from the school.
It is, of course, problematic to look at use of libraries without eliciting information about the amount of use or frequency of use. There were several questions and statements that concerned the frequency of use of the physical library.
Table II shows the proportion of users that visit the library at least weekly.
It is evident that the learning centres and libraries situated at the high schools are an important part of the lives of the students. Frequent visits to the public libraries are also apparent.
Table III indicates what the students use their school libraries for:
It is evident that students from the general high schools have a more extensive use of the services with one important exception. The exception is lending literature and other materials for school work. The students from the business and technical high schools do that more frequently and it possibly reflects the more specialised literature they are using.
Turning to the use of general search engines in relation to the four types of users, Google is heavily used by all four groups of high school students. Of all high school students, 95 per cent state that they use Google at least weekly but it is also evident that the group of students using only the public library for study purposes is less keen on Google than the other three groups. The use pattern of the group that does not use libraries does not differ from the other groups. Male students use Google more frequently than female students but it is the same proportion of both genders that use it. Comparison of the four groups in relation to employments of search engines shows overall a small increase in the frequency of Google use from the first to the third year.
There is no difference in the use of a search engine like Yahoo. Less than 6 per cent of the high school students use it on a weekly base. The use of Alta Vista is even less. In particular the students using only the public library tend to avoid it.
On looking at more formally structured net guides some interesting differences can be found in relation to the “libraries net guide”. This net guide is the library system's guide to quality resources in all areas. It is used at least monthly by 18 per cent of the group using both types of libraries in contrast to 10 per cent of the group that only use the educational library. It is also used more by female students than male students. The group that uses it least is that which only uses public libraries.
Bibliotek.dk is a national database that contains the holdings of all Danish libraries. It is a very easy tool to use and it is especially useful if one wants to investigate the collections of libraries or go into an interlibrary loan transaction. It is probably not a surprise that the proportion of the different user types of students differs. It is evident that the use of this database correlates with physical library use (see Table IV).
In total, the students answered questions concerning their use of 13 different formalised net guides or portals. The guides are all Danish and more or less oriented towards either general or educational purposes. Table V shows the relationship between physical library use and the use of some selected net guides and portals.
It is evident that there is a positive correlation between the use of physical libraries and library resources and general resources on the internet. The lowest rate of use is found in the group of students stating that they do not use the physical library. It is also interesting to note that students only using the public library have a lower use rate than students only using the educational library.
Some interesting preliminary conclusions can be made at this point. Female students are more inclined to use formalised library guides and resources than male students. Of the female students, 58 per cent, as opposed to 49 per cent of the male students from the general high schools, use both types of libraries. From the business high schools, 47 per cent of the female students versus 33 per cent of the male students use both types of libraries. The same pattern is seen in relation to the technical high schools. Of the female students, 51 per cent, versus 30 per cent of the male students, use both types of libraries. On looking at the proportion of students sating non-use of libraries, a pattern influenced by gender can also be seen. From the general high schools only 5 per cent of the female students state non-use versus 12 per cent of the male students. The figures for this from the business high schools are 14 per cent for female students versus 30 per cent for male students. From the technical high schools 6 per cent of the female students and 25 per cent of the male students state non-use. Male students interact more frequently with general search engines than female students. The group that use both types of libraries also use search engines and net guides more frequently than other students. Finally there appears to be a tendency that students using only public libraries are less confident in their use of digital resources. Library use and use of digital resources goes hand in hand and it indicates simply that some groups of students tend to use information much more than other students.
Female students also have a preference for using public libraries in contrast to male students who have a preference for using the educational library.
One aspect is the physical use and visits to libraries. Another is simply how often other kinds of information resources are employed. All the students rely heavily on electronic resources, and in particular Google and Wikipedia are popular and part of the daily preparation. The correlation between use pattern of the physical library and the use of net resources is very important.
The large difference in information behaviour between the four groups of students cannot be explained alone by demographic factors. The survey contained a section with statements about students study preference and behaviour. In the following paragraphs considers the four groups of high schools students in relation to these statements (see Table VI).
A difference can be seen between the four groups of high school students on looking at the statements concerning different aspects of their perceptions of information literacy teaching they have received. It is important to note that the majority of high schools students have received some kind of information literacy instruction including instruction in library use and an introduction to databases and quality resources on the internet. An interesting figure arises from the table. Of the students stating non-use of libraries, 12 per cent indicate that they sometimes ask a librarian for help. A possible explanation is that this group of students do not make a connection between their perception of library use and the fact that they sometimes ask a librarian for help. The same consideration relates to the statement concerning the use of the ILL system. This system definitely involves a library but all the operation can be conducted from home.
A k-mean clustering technique formed two clusters of high schools students. The two clusters are based on six statements concerning different aspects of the perceptions of information literacy teaching and perceptions of the cooperation between teachers and libraries.
The six statements were:
- Have you during your study received introduction to the use of the library?
- Have you received introduction to databases and electronic resources on the internet?
- Do the teachers often mention the library as an important element in your study?
- Is it required that you use additional information and literature?
- Is there any cooperation between your teachers and the library?
- Do you find it difficult to find appropriate information in your studies?
The two clusters differ much on five of the six statements. One of the clusters consist of students that are very well aware that they have received information literacy teaching and also that their teachers cooperate with the library and their teachers also often mention the library as an important part of a high school education. This group of students also perceives that their assignments require more theoretical work than students from the other cluster. No difference is found between the two clusters in relation to their perception of how difficult it is to find materials for their assignments.
The following table (Table VII) cross tabulates the four groups of students with the two clusters of students.
A very strong correlation is found between the two clusters and the use of physical libraries. The lower the students perceive their instruction in information literacy to have been and the less aware they are of the importance teachers assign to libraries the less they will use the physical library.
The significance the high school students place on the public library service is an interesting question because much effort has gone into developing library services and library areas according to librarians' perceptions of what young people want from a library. In the survey, a list of services and service attributes was put forward and the students were asked how they would rate them in relation to significance and preferences. A very interesting picture emerges from the data.
The importance or significance is calculated on a scale from 0 to 100 and it forms the basis of the ranking. The ranking of the importance or the perception of the significance of the public libraries' services is shown in Table VII. The table gives the overall ranking and value of the different services in total. It gives the values related to selected demographic factors. It is important to note that the values related to the demographic factors only include those where a statistical significant difference is found (see Table VIII).
Translated into normal text, it could be said that the high school students prefer a kind and polite service in nice quiet rooms with ambience in a library not too far away and filled with books. Not all the students have the same preferences. It is obvious from the data that female students place a higher significance on books than the male students. They also think that the politeness of service and the ambience is more important. The significance of the public library as a meeting place including areas for groups work, study places and the like decrease from year 1 to year 3, indicating that the students during their study form their own groups and meet elsewhere. The most interesting result is probably that the students appear to have extremely traditional preferences in relation to public libraries. The importance students place on service and facilities concerns issues such as convenience, atmosphere, ambience, books and information.
Conclusion and perspectives
There are several important results from the study. Demographic factors play an important role in relation to high school students' use of libraries and digital resources. It is evident that students from the general high school system use the library system as a whole more than students from the other two kinds of high schools. This difference is mainly due to the fact that students from the general high schools use public libraries much more in addition to the school library than the two other groups. Fifteen per cent of the students state that they do not use physical libraries at all. The most important fact with this figure is probably that it decreases greatly from the first study year to the third and last. The type of high school obviously influences the pattern of use especially in relation to the students using only one library. Students from the business and technical high schools appear to have an overall preference in relation to their school library or learning centre. In contrast, students from the general high schools have a preference for public libraries.
The most striking feature in relation to the traditional demographic factors is probably the fact that library use increases greatly during the high school period. This applies to all types of high schools. It is also a striking feature that gender influences the use of physical libraries to the extent it does. This also applies to all types of high schools.
Based on the survey data, four groups were formed according to their use pattern in relation to physical libraries. Clusters were based on the intensity of library use. These clusters were analysed in relation to the use of different digital resources. It is not surprising that Google came out as a tool used by nearly all the students independent of most of the demographic factors.
Membership of one of the clusters correlates very much with the use of other digital quality assured resources. It is important to emphasise that a positive correlation exists between use of libraries and digital resources. The cluster that uses both types of libraries has a more extensive use of digital resources than the other groups and it is also interesting to note, that students in the cluster characterised by a library bypass do not compensate with digital resources. It appears that students only using the public library tend to use digital resources less than some of the other clusters.
Interesting differences were found between the four clusters and the students preferences concerning study and information behaviour. In particular students in the cluster using both types of libraries demonstrate a behaviour that is traditional in the good sense. They read more than required in comparison with the other clusters and they perceive that they need more additional literature. They interact much more with librarians and use the facilities of the cooperating library system to a greater extent than the other groups.
Students in this cluster also perceive a greater impact of information literacy teaching and they have a greater recollection of interaction between librarians and teachers. At the same time they are more aware of perceived requirements in relation to assignments.
It is very important to emphasise that the questions and statements in the survey concerning study and information behaviour and information literacy are about the students perceptions more than they are hard facts showing differences between the schools. In this way, the clusters could form the background for a hypothesis that mental dispositions and psychological traits are factors that also influence the use of libraries and digital resources.
The survey also included statements about the students' preferences in relation to the public libraries and their services and facilities. Again interesting differences can be seen related to demographic factors when students place importance on the services and the facilities. The most remarkable feature is that the students as a whole find the traditional services the most important and there is no indication that students rating these services lower place a higher value on newer and more digital oriented services.
The results of the research indicate that high school students are a much diversified group possessing a great variability in information behaviour. Demographic factors clearly indicate that different kinds of segmentation of the group are a necessity if the library system wants to meet the needs and perceived needs of the group. The study further demonstrates a very marked and significant correlation between the use of physical libraries and digital resources. A similar correlation exists between the students use of information resources and their perceptions of own study and information behaviour. This is also important, because it demonstrates again that one size does not fit all, for example in relation to information literacy teaching. The students' perception of the requirements from the school system also correlates with the amount of and intensity of use of libraries and information resources. The study also indicates that the perceptions of the public libraries and the importance placed on services and facilities are situational and change according to demographic factors even if the overall picture is rather traditional. This is interesting because much debate in the library profession is centred on the inclusion and employment of social technologies as means of communicating with the young generation. The research hints at a troubling issue, which is that the library profession's construction of user needs and wants is a bit out of tune with the high school students' perception of the importance of what constitutes a library.
Table IUse of types of libraries in relation to type of high school, row percent
Table IIProportion of students using libraries at least weekly
Table IIIProportion of students stating that they often or from time to time use the school library for the following purposes
Table IVProportions of user types using bibliotek.dk at least monthly
Table VProportions of user types using selected portals at least monthly
Table VIProportions of user types that agree with the statements concerning study preferences and behaviour
Table VIIStudents clustered in relation to information literacy perceptions and user type, row percentage
Table VIIIThe students' perceptions of the importance of services and facilities in relation to demographics; scale 0-100
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About the author
Niels Ole Pors is a Professor at The Royal School of Library and Information Science, Copenhagen, Denmark.