Research on outcomes assessment of university libraries

With the advent of universalization of higher education, the public wants universities to take responsibility for the quality and effectiveness of their education. This includes how closely the university library falls in line with the role shouldered by the parent university. A university library assessment is one tool to help verify accountability. When examining quality and effectiveness, instead of showing the activity results, the assessment needs to focus on whether, for example, 1) a service is acknowledged as useful to students, 2) the learning environment is adequate, 3) students achieve the learning outcomes, and 4) the library contributes to the achievement of learning outcomes.

Unfortunately, there is still no well-established outcomes assessment method. So this research explores library usage patterns of students and student learning outcomes, and then the correlation between them. Table 1 shows the list of the Focus Group Interviews and surveys. Table 2 shows the correlation between library usage patterns and student learning results. “Extended use” refers to students using the library as a place to chat or for computing. “Study use” refers to students using the library to read books or to investigate a subject. And “stroll use” refers to students using the library to browse around books/journals. In addition to the relatively close correlation between learning outcomes and study use, the survey also shows a correlation with strolling use.