1. Dr. Nancy Evans Weaver
Principal Lecturer, Psychology
Estelle Barnard
Subject Librarian, Psychology
Open Polytechnic of New Zealand

2. Overview of Presentation
 Introduction: Background and rationale
 Method: Participants, Materials, Procedure
 Results: Descriptive statistics, Statistical testing
 Discussion: Summary of findings, critique, future
plans

3. Introduction
Estelle’s question:
What library sources do psychology students use?
Expanded version:
What sources from the scholarly literature do tertiary-
level students use in completing their assignments?
Collaborative nature of our research
 Nancy: Psychology lecturer, teaching in one of our
large introductory psychology courses
 Estelle: Psychology librarian, helping lecturers to
develop resources for students in this course.

4. Our Goals
 Use our data to advise faculty.
 Do faculty expectations about type and frequency of use
match student use patterns?
 How can faculty improve instructions about source use
in scholarly writing?
 Use our data to advise librarians.
 Are current library resources used by students?
 How can library programmes better fit needs?

5. Our Data
We collected data on:
 Sources used
 Textbook?
 Instructor-provided sources?
 Library-provided sources?
 Student characteristics
 Previous and current study
 Assignment characteristics
 Submitted online or in print?
 Mark received?

6. Method
Participants
 Students enrolled in 73195 general & applied
psychology, trimester 1 2010
 124 students
 Previous and current study
 55% had NCEA levels 2 or 3
 53% had previously enrolled at OP for a course(s)
 67% studying only this course this trimester

7. This course
 One of a pair of Intro Psych courses at the Open
Polytechnic
 ODL (online and distance learning)
 Assignment 1: Set up, run, and report on a
psychological experiment on memory
 Specifically instructed in APA citing and referencing
(counts for 5% of mark)

8. Materials
 Collected the References page from Assignment 1 for
all 124 students
 Coded to remove identity
 Coded to record type of submission (in print or online)

9. Procedure
 Stratified random sample (n=12) of entire
assignments pulled and checked to see how
accurately References page captured sources cited.
 32/36 sources on References page were cited (as they
should be) within the assignment: Accuracy = 88.89%
 32/33 cited sources were on References page (as they
should be): Accuracy = 96.97%
 Categorized and counted sources used

10. Results
Two types of data analysis
1. Descriptive statistics: Categories, with central
tendencies, ranges, frequencies
2. Statistical testing: Chi square tests of 3 hypotheses

11. Results: Descriptive Statistics
 Total number of sources used
 Mean = 3.62 sources (none required)
 Range = 0 – 11
 Median and Mode = 4

12. Results: Descriptive Statistics
 Instructor-recommended sources
 Textbook
 Frequency: 73/124 student (59%)
 Provided journal articles
 Frequency: 83%, 57%, and 53%
 Provided background summary
 Frequency: 45%

13. Results: Descriptive Statistics
 Library sources
 Subject Guide (online list of 73 library-held materials
specifically for this course and this assignment)
 Frequency: 6%
 Range: 0-2
 Recommended and Additional Resources (online list of
17 library-held materials useful for psychology in
general)
 Frequency: 2%
 Range: 0-4

14. Results: Descriptive Statistics
 Other sources
 Not textbook, not instructor-recommended, not library-
provided
 Found by student (?)
 Frequency: 21%
 Range: 0-7

15. Results: Descriptive Statistics
 Type of submission
 Students choose
 In this assignment, 80% submitted online and 20%
submitted in print.
 Mark achieved
 Mean = 64.47
 Mode = 75
 Median = 67
 Range: 18 to 91

16. Results: Statistical Testing
 Just beginning – many more to run.
 Based on pilot study (2009) and experience in this
course, we tested two general effects:
 Hypothesis 1: There would be an effect of type of
submission.
 Hypothesis 2 : Some source variables would affect
mark achieved.

17. Results: Statistical Testing
Hypothesis 1:
There would be an effect of type of submission.
Specific test:
Use of journal articles would differ between online and print
submissions.
Result:
When we grouped the articles used (no articles used, 1 article
used, 2 articles used, all 3 articles used), there is the suggestion
of an effect. Online submissions may have used more of these
articles than did print submissions (Chi square = 7.44, df = 3, p = .059).

18. Results: Statistical Testing
Hypothesis 2:
Some source variables would affect mark achieved.
Specific Test # 1:
The number of sources used would be related to the
mark achieved.
Result:
Grouping number of sources (0-1, 2-3, 4 or
more), there is a weak effect on mark. Assignments
using more sources got higher marks (Chi square =
12.59, df = 6, p = .05).

19. Results: Statistical Testing
Hypothesis 2:
Some source variables would affect mark achieved.
Specific Test # 2:
The use of instructor-recommended articles would be
related to the mark achieved.
Result:
Grouping article use (no article used, 1 used, 2 used, all
3 used) and grouping marks into letter grade categories
(0-49, 50-59, 60-74, 75-100), there is a significant effect
on mark. Assignments using more of these articles got
higher marks (Chi square = 24.78, df = 9, p < .01).

20. Results: Summary
 We categorized source types, collected descriptive statistics on
all of them, and ran some statistical tests.
 On average, students used 3 or 4 sources in this assignment.
 The most frequently used sources were the instructor-provided
set of three journal articles, the textbook, and the instructor-
provided background.
 Library sources were infrequently used.
 Statistical testing suggests some effects of type of submission
and two variables that affect mark.

21. Discussion
 Can we measure the types and frequencies of sources
used by tertiary-level students beginning their study
of psychology?
Yes.
 Our results relate well to a body of literature on the use
of citation analysis. Journal articles are often used
heavily in student writing, and advice from faculty
affects what sources students use (e.g., Krause, 2002).
We found both these effects among ODL students at
the Open Polytechnic.

22. Surprises
 More use of sources than we expected, given that none
(other than their own data) are required:
average of 3 – 4 sources used, with one student using 11.
 As we found in the pilot study, assignments submitted
online may differ in some ways from those submitted in
print.
 Very low use of library sources, even those specifically
geared to this assignment in this course.

23. Limitations to our work
 Very limited sample:
 Students in one course, in one trimester, in one discipline,
at one institution (which is ODL).
 Limitations involving participants:
 We assume competency in citing and referencing.
 We assume honesty in citing and referencing.
 Limitations involving statistics:
 We have only begun testing.
 Some categories have low numbers, which can affect results.

24. Future directions
 Finish stats testing.
 Analyse data from Assignment 2.
 Collect and analyse data from assignments in a Level 6
course for which 73195 is a prerequisite.

25. Thanks
 Our colleagues for help with data collection and
analysis.
 Our students for their hard work in learning how to
run an experiment and write a scholarly report.
 You, our audience today. Comments and suggestions:
Nancy.Weaver@openpolytechnic.ac.nz