Academic Library Behaviors and Perceptions of a Community College's Distance Learners

University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations 2017 Academic Library Behaviors and Perceptions of a Community College’s Distance Learners Cantrell Johnson University of South Carolina Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation Johnson, C.(2017). Academic Library Behaviors and Perceptions of a Community College’s Distance Learners. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/4170 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ACADEMIC LIBRARY BEHAVIORS AND PERCEPTIONS OF A COMMUNITY COLLEGE’S DISTANCE LEARNERS by Cantrell Johnson Bachelor of Arts Central Connecticut State University, 1997 Master of Science Central Connecticut State University, 2003 Master of Science Southern Connecticut State University, 2009 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Library and Information Science College of Information and Communications University of South Carolina 2017 Accepted by: Paul Solomon, Major Professor Susan Rathbun-Grubb, Committee Member Karen Gavigan, Committee Member Mary Brown, Committee Member Cheryl L. Addy, Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School © Copyright by Cantrell Johnson, 1997 All Rights Reserved. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Paul Solomon for his selfless time and care through this process. I could not have imagined having a better advisor and mentor for my Ph.D. study. Besides my advisor, I would like to thank the rest of my committee: Dr. Mary Brown, Dr. Susan Rathbun-Grubb, and Dr. Karen Gavigan for their encouragement, insightful comments and hard questions. I want to offer my thanks to Dr. Doris Van Kampen-Breit for her prior research on this subject and for allowing me to use her Library Anxiety Scale. I would like to thank my cohort members, particularly Anmol Kalsi and Porchia Moore for our stimulating discussions, supportive exchange, and all the fun we had for the last four years, which helped enrich the experience. April Dawkins, I am most grateful for your support during our Statistics course. I would like to express my gratitude to those dear to me for their encouragement and support during this journey (Donna, Duncan, Jane, Jeviah, Lawrence, Linda, Michael, Ruth, Shavonne, Tilda and Valerie). LKJ, if everyone had a friend like you, the world would be a better place. iii ABSTRACT Over 1,200 community colleges nationwide enroll over ten million students each year, with more than one in four of these students taking some of their courses at a distance. Many of these post-secondary institutions also struggle to retain and graduate students enrolled as distance learners. In a continuing effort to address college completion gaps, research attempts to identify barriers to success and provide insights on how to decrease college completion gaps. Given post-secondary education’s increased focus on students’ use of resources beyond the classroom, a logical line of exploration is the link between academic library usage and library aptitudes and attitudes. This study sought to examine the academic library behaviors and perceptions of a community college’s distance learners. Of interest is the relationship among inexperience, apathy, and anxiety in general as well as differences, if any, among demographic variables of gender, race/ethnicity, and distance from their college. Ninety-two distance learners completed an abbreviated thirty-item version of the Multidimensional Library Scale developed by D. J. Van Kampen-Breit in 2016. Results were analyzed using well Pearson’s r, independent sample t-tests, and ANOVA using the composite factors of inexperience, apathy, and anxiety. The most compelling finding in relation to race and to the study was that White students were significantly more experienced than Asian students. Correlations suggest that as student becomes more experienced with how to use the library and its resources, anxiety in and apathy toward using the library will decrease. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................ iii ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................. vi LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................ vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................11 CHAPTER 3 METHODS ..........................................................................................................31 CHAPTER 4 RESULTS ...........................................................................................................42 CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION ......................................................................................................53 REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................60 APPENDIX A ABBREVIATED MULTIDIMENSIONAL LIBRARY ANXIETY SCALE .......................70 APPENDIX B USC INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD APPROVAL LETTER .................................72 APPENDIX C USC IRB AMENDMENT APPROVAL LETTER .......................................................73 APPENDIX D MANCHESTER COMMUNITY COLLEGE INVITATION LETTER .............................74 APPENDIX E MCC INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW COMMITTEE APPROVAL LETTER ........................75 APPENDIX F INFORMED CONSENT .......................................................................................76 APPENDIX G INTERVIEW QUESTIONS ...................................................................................77 APPENDIX H INTERVIEWS ...................................................................................................78 v LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Juxtaposition of Sample Population to Entire Student Body ...........................32 Table 3.2 Variables, Research Questions and Items on Survey .......................................33 Table 3.3 Composition Questions for Composite Factors ...............................................38 Table 4.1 Distribution of Participants among Reported Ethnic Backgrounds .................42 Table 4.2 Makeup of the Composite Factors: Inexperience, Anxiety, and Apathy; and Average Rating for Each Question across All Participants ......................44 Table 4.3 One-way ANOVA of Differences in Inexperience, Anxiety, and Apathy among the Four Ethnic Backgrounds ...............................................................46 Table 4.4 Percent of Students Reporting Ability to Perform Specific Library Skills, Attitude toward the Library as Part of College Life .............................47 Table 4.5 Content Analysis of Similar Library Behaviors & Perceptions .......................48 Table 4.6 Content Analysis of Differing Library Behaviors & Perceptions ....................51 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1 Correlation of Inexperience, Apathy, and Anxiety in Distance Learning Students ............................................................................................45 Figure 5.1 Higher Education Student Success Model .......................................................54 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS LAS .................................................................................................... Library Anxiety Scale MCC .................................................................................. Manchester Community College MLAS ...................................................................Multidimensional Library Anxiety Scale viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Introduction to the Problem The theoretical construct of ‘library anxiety’ can be traced back to Constance Mellon who coined the term in 1986. “Mellon’s 1986 article was chosen as one of the seven most important in the 75-year history of College & Research Libraries because it made library anxiety, a phenomenon observed by practitioners, ‘official’ and uncovered its origins” (Gremmels, 2015, p. 270). Feelings of anxiety have been attributed to “(a) the relative size of the library; (b) a lack of knowledge about the location of materials, equipment, and resources; (c) a lack of knowledge about how to initiate library research; and (d) a lack of knowledge about how to proceed with a library search” (Onwuegbuzie, Jiao, & Bostick, 2004, p. 31). Mellon (1988) concluded that three attitudes can help to explain the basis of library anxiety: 1. students’ fears are due to a feeling that other students are competent at library use while they are alone incompetent 2. the lack of competence is somehow shameful and must be kept hidden 3. and asking questions reveals inadequacies Onwuegbuzie, Jiao and Bostick (2004) summarized the symptoms of library anxiety as “a student who experiences

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