Purpose & Goals

When academic librarians undertake assessment of teaching and learning in the library, we are asked to default to using simple metrics to establish our “value” to the institution and to the mission of student learning. We measure the attributes that we, as librarians, think are important or those our professional organizations have outlined in professional standards. Academic libraries favor quantitative measurements of these outcomes because they are purported to be easily digested in simple soundbites by those outside the library. A question arises from this norm: how meaningful is this kind of assessment? How does it improve and strengthen our relationships with students? We argue that this type of assessment and data collection actually distances us from our students, and reduces the student experience to a single number in a spreadsheet. 3 learning outcomes Attendees will: Understand how a reliance on singular quantitative assessment measures cause harm to students and librarians in academic libraries. Learn one potential method for placing students’ own values in the core of assessment processes. Be able to generate an assessment plan that favors open-ended qualitative data collection.

Design & Methodology

This presentation will describe the process one teaching and learning department is taking to reimagine assessment with student voices and experiences at the center. An essential component of this process involves partnering with our students to investigate the qualities, attributes, and values that they prioritize as being essential to their development as information literate individuals. We will share how we engaged with students via focus groups and in-class activities to learn about their core values, principles, and preferred outcomes and how we plan to place those themes in the center of our departmental assessment. We are in the process of collecting qualitative data from over 300 students at different stages in their college careers.

Findings

We are in the process of collecting data during spring 2024 and we plan to analyze the data for recurring themes over summer. We look forward to presenting the analysis of our findings in this poster.

Action & Impact

Our plan is to realign our values to include student voices in all aspects of library teaching and instruction based on our findings. We hope to implement these values and apply lessons learned to our approach to student library instruction and engagement, including: in-person library instructional sessions, library instructional guides and course materials, and research and reference desk engagement for students at different academic levels and in various subject disciplines.

Practical Implications & Value

Student learning experiences in the context of the academic library (i.e. either in-person or virtually with library workers and/or online services) are barely understood through the lens of quantitative data. There is a significant body of research that makes clear quantitative data gathering and analysis often marginalizes and excludes the experiences of historically under-represented populations. We argue that centering quantitative data gathering and analysis does active harm to academic libraries, library workers, and the students we serve. We hope this poster presentation will encourage other libraries to re-visit their teaching and learning assessment methodologies. Our research extends the path of inquiry generated by librarians interested in Critical Assessment, most notably the ideas reflected in the following publications: Accardi, Maria T. “Teaching Against the Grain: Critical Assessment in the Library Classroom.” In Critical Library Instruction: Theories & Methods, edited by Maria T. Accardi, Emily Drabinski, and Alana Kumbier, 251-264. Duluth: Library Juice Press, 2010. Gardner, Carolyn Caffrey, and Rebecca Halpern. "At Odds with Assessment: Being a Critical Educator in the Academy." In Critical Library Pedagogy Handbook (Volume 1), 41-51. Association of College and Research Libraries, 2016. Halpern, Rebecca, Christopher Eaker, John Jackson, and Daina Bouquin. “#DitchTheSurvey: Expanding Methodological Diversity in LIS Research.” In the Library with the Lead Pipe. March 2015. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2015/ditchthesurvey-expanding-methodological-diversity-in-lis-research/ Magnus, Ebony, Jackie Belanger, and Maggie Faber. “Towards a Critical Assessment Practice.” In the Library with the Lead Pipe. October 2018. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/towards-critical-assessment-practice/