Creating a Culture of Assessment: Cascadia Community College Student and Faculty Focus Groups

1. Creating a Culture of Assessment: Cascadia Community College Student and Faculty Focus Groups Amanda Hornby and Julie Planchon Wolf Bothell Campus Library August 5, 2008 Library Assessment Conference

2. Focus Group Reports and Presentations Web Site http://library.uwb.edu/focusgroups/

3. Project History • UW Bothell Academic Services User Needs Committee created in 2005 • Co-Chairs, 05-07: Constructed the questions and marketing materials • Sought and received approval through UW Human Subjects Dept. and Cascadia Human Participants Review Committee • Conducted eight focus groups with Students and Faculty

4. Pros and Cons of Focus Groups • Focus groups are flexible • Obtain a large amount of rich information in relatively short time • Uncover unexpected information: find out what users think, not researchers • Challenging to recruit focus group participants • Can’t generalize from focus group results • Quality of data dependent on group moderator (Glitz, 1998 & Berg, 2007)

5. Process for Setting-up Focus Groups • What do you want to know? • Who do you want to ask? • How many people do you need to ask? Reaching Saturation (Krueger & Casey, 2000) • Discipline groups for students • Mixed faculty groups okay

6. Sample of Student Questions • Tell us what you like best about the Campus Library and Media Center. • What has NOT worked well for you in the Campus Library and Media Center? • Now, please imagine the perfect place for you to do school work. What would it look like? • What have you gained from having a campus librarian or Media Center staff person work with your classes?

7. Sample of Faculty Questions • Tell us what you like best about the Campus Library and Media Center. • When have you needed information that wasn’t available or that you couldn’t access? • What things about the Campus Library and Media Center are confusing to you? • What have you gained from having a campus librarian or Media Center staff person work with your classes? • What skills do you want students to learn about using the Bothell Campus Library and Campus Media Center?

8. Focus Group Results - 1 • Facilities and Environment/Space – positive comments • Services – positive comments, need to market them more. LC Classification system confusing. • Technology – room for improvement • Collections – useful at Bothell and all UW

9. Focus Group Results - 2 • Librarians – helpful and knowledgeable, need to market subject librarians’ roles • Library Instruction – helpful for assignments • Campus Media Center – helpful, need to market more • Library Tours – students recommended improvements

10. Quotes from Transcripts – Students • “…I think it’s nice that the librarians aren’t just…people off the street. They have some knowledge of …classes and courses…” • “These librarians are actually …knowledgeable... The one, she [said] I just got my masters degree and it was …nice to know that the librarians are smart. I don’t know how else to put it.”

11. Quotes from Transcripts – Faculty • [Librarians are] “pretty amazing folks and pretty amazing job descriptions. …really astounding and amazing humans…” • “… what benefits my students is the idea that the library is integrated into our curriculum…as instructors. They’re not just librarians, they also come in and teach our students about information literacy…they’re more than just what we would imagine a librarian would serve.”

12. Actions Taken (So far) - 1 • Improved signage: signs created to explain/clarify Library of Congress organization in the book stacks • User-Centered Instruction • Marketing in the classroom and online the services of subject librarians including individual and group consultations. • Technology: explicit printing instructions posted; more scanners added to Information Commons

13. Actions Taken (So far) - 2 • Our UW Human Subjects Department Application was used as a model when applying for another project. Accepted quickly. • User Needs Committee continued for 2007-09 • Administrators are using the results in strategic Library planning documents

14. Culture of Assessment • Library’s Prior Assessment efforts • Focus group data used in tandem with other assessment projects at UW and Cascadia CC • Triangulation in research methods: combining several methods give more substantive picture of users (Berg) • Ongoing discussions of focus group data with librarians to follow-up on ideas • Focus group process and recommendations helpful to create sustainable assessment models for our campus

15. Recommendations - 1 • Have a clear vision of what you want to ask • what do you specifically want to learn from the population(s)? • Communicate frequently with team members and stakeholders

16. Recommendations - 2 • When running/organizing focus groups, flexibility and creativity are a must! • A non-biased and talented moderator is key to running good focus groups • Use focus group method with other assessment methods

17. Small Group Activity – Brainstorming Questions • Get into groups of 2 or 3 people • Brainstorm focus group questions with your group • Write down the top 2 questions on the worksheets • Get ready to share with the large group

18. Questions? • Amanda Hornby: ahornby@uwb.edu • Reference & Instruction/Media and Technology Studies Librarian • Julie Planchon Wolf: jwolf@uwb.edu • Reference & Instruction/Nursing Librarian University of Washington Bothell and Cascadia Community College Campus Library