ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C&RL News ■ M ay 2001 / 537 C o l l e g e & R e s e a r c h L i b r a r i e s sweN Training library student assistants Bloomsburg University’s interactive instructional program by Erik Poole, Frank Gr¡eco, H eather Derek, and Tom Socash Blo om sburg University, lo cated in rural northeastern Pennsylvania, is hom e to the new ly constructed Harvey A. Andruss Library. This state-of-the-art building, w hich o p e n e d May 26,1998, now offers stack space for more than 400,000 volum es, up-to-date eq u ip m en t for view ing m ore th a n 1.7 m illio n microfilms in the li b r a r y ’s c o l l e c ­ tion, an d o p e n ac­ cess to current p e ­ riodicals, as w ell as ρre-1987 jour­ nals that h a d b e e n in storage. These enhance- han cem en ts have led to an increased re lia n c e o n s tu ­ den t em ployees to perform basic d u ­ ties an d functions. T hese students are ex p ected to perform a w ide variety o f tasks ranging from assisting patrons to shelving library items. The problem Faced w ith th e d ilem m a o f providing in­ d epth, consistent training to a large num ber o f students o n an individual basis, the library’s supervisors contacted the Institute o f Interac­ The m ain menu displaying th e fo u r sections o f th e tra in in g program . tive Technologies. A group o f five graduate students volunteered to design and develop a fully com puterized training program , w hich w as to b e accessible to the students in the library. The evaluation o f the initial training p ro ­ vid ed to stu d en t e m p l o y e e s r e ­ vealed several in­ a d eq u acies. Stu­ d e n t s r e c e i v e d only o n e o r tw o hours of one-on- o n e training w ith a su p erv iso r b e ­ fore being asked to serve patrons. In a d d i t i o n , th e p articip atio n of various su p er­ visors in the d e ­ livery of the train­ in g h a d i n t r o ­ d u ced inconsistent results. The training also pro v ed daunting for the library supervisors d u e to the large influx of n e w students each sem ester. Finally, th e m inim al n u m b e r of training hours could n ot possibly p rep are a stu d en t to han d le all the responsibilities that the job dem ands. Providing the students w ith individualized training becam e difficult due to students’ con­ A b o u t th e au th ors Erik Poole, Frank Grieœ, Heather Derek, and Tom Socash are a graduate students a t the Institute fo r Interactive Technology a t Bloom sburg University in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, e-mail: evpoole@ hotmail.com, griecofrank@ hotm ail.com , hderck@hotmail.com, tasoca@hotmail.com mailto:evpoole@hotmail.com mailto:griecofrank@hotmail.com mailto:hderck@hotmail.com mailto:tasoca@hotmail.com 5 3 8 /C&RL News ■ M a y 2001 flicting a n d hectic schedules. In stead o f b e ­ ing able to train a g ro u p o f stu d en ts at a time, the supervisors w e re forced to deal w ith each s tu d e n t o n an individual basis. This to o k u p large p o rtio n s o f time, w h ich fo rced su p erv i­ sors to n eg lect o th e r im p o rtan t tasks. The solution T he interactive instructional p ro g ram dev el­ o p e d to m e e t th ese n e e d s en c o m p a sse s the fo u r m ajor skill sets u s e d b y stu d en ts em ­ p lo y e d at th e circulation desk. T hese areas inclu d e basic cu sto m er service, the hand lin g o f periodicals, th e hand lin g o f reserved m a­ terials, a n d th e u se o f “V o y a g e r,” th e c o m p u t e r i z e d li­ brary catalog. W ith presen tatio n o f les­ s o n c o n te n t, th e p ro g ra m p ro v id e s a n a ssessm en t for e a c h su b je c t are a a n d tracking o f stu­ d e n t achievem ent. T he m ain m en u is b r o k e n d o w n in to fo u r lesso n s, o n e for each m ajor skill set. At th e e n d o f each lesson, the s t u d e n t is p r e ­ s e n te d w ith a r e ­ view sectio n sum m arizing th e sectio n 's c o n ­ ten t a n d th e o p tio n to re p e a t th e lesso n o r co m p lete a practice assessm ent. Each practice assessm ent contains four o b ­ jective questions, w h ich are d e sig n e d to al­ lo w th e s tu d e n t to w o rk w ith th e m aterial p re s e n te d in th e lesso n a n d also to d e te r­ m ine w h e th e r th e stu d e n t is read y to m ove o n to th e final assessm ent. A sco re o f 75% m ust b e ach iev ed in e a c h practice section for th e s tu d e n t to b e allo w e d access to each le sso n ’s final assessm ent. This p ro cess e n ­ sures th at th e stu d en ts have re tain ed a suffi­ cient a m o u n t o f inform ation from th e lesso n co n ten t prio r to view ing th e final assessm ent. T h e p ro g ra m p ro v id e s in te ra c tiv e e x ­ am ples a n d p resen ts o rdinary scenarios as­ so ciated w ith th e circulation desk. This gives th e stu d en ts a ch an ce to e n c o u n te r co m m o n tasks w ith o u t any real c o n se q u e n c e s o ccu r­ ring if a m istake is m ade. It also familiarizes T a b le 1. Final assessment achievem ent levels. th e stu d e n t o n th e basic roles a n d re sp o n si­ bilities o n e has w h ile w o rk in g at th e circula­ tion desk. The results T h e p ro g ra m a llo w e d stu d e n ts to receiv e training w ith o u t th e aid o f a su p erv iso r a n d o n a n in dividualized basis. T h e su p e rv iso r’s duties w e re m inim ized to only ch eck in g as­ s e s s m e n t s c o re s a n d m o n ito rin g s tu d e n t progress. Students w ere ab le to access th e training at any tim e in ac c o rd a n ce to their schedule. T he program also delivers th e train­ ing in a stan d ard ized form at, elim inating any d i s c r e p a n c i e s . N o w , e v e ry s tu ­ d e n t is tau g h t th e s a m e g r o u p o f p r o c e d u r e s a n d n o th in g is left o ut d u e to l a c k o f time. T h e k e y e l e ­ m ent in any train­ ing program is to p ro d u ce evidence of learning. All stu­ dents participating in th e t r a i n i n g p rogram ’s evalua­ tion h a d n o prior experience in the area of library ser­ vices. In sm all-group evaluations, eight stu­ den ts w ere asked to com plete all four lessons a n d assessm ents in o n e session. For all lessons, the students surpassed the m inim um m astery level o f 75% o r 3 o f the 4 practice activities o n their first attem pt. Also, 87.5% o f th e students tested achieved th e re­ quired m astery level o n the final assessm ents after going through the training only once. The m ean scores an d req u ired m astery levels for th e final assessm ents are sum m arized in Table 1. In actual delivery, s tu d e n t em p lo y ees o f th e A ndruss Library will review each o f th e lesso n s sep arately o v er th e sp a n o f a w eek . This will allow th e stu d en ts to p e ru se each lesso n until th e y are com fortable w ith th e con ten t, a n d co m p lete th e assessm ents indi­ vidually. T herefore, it is a n ticip ated that a h ig h er rate o f a c h iev em en t will b e realized u p o n actual im plem entation. ■ C&RL News ■ M ay 2001 1539 How do you make your journal choices? ISI Journal Qtαtion Rep ON o TH r E t W s EB , The Journal Citation Reports® on the Web is a sure bet for accurate journal evaluation. It enables you to objectively analyze your scholarly research journals in virtually all science and social sciences disciplines. In fact, this unique and powerful journal evaluation tool lets you easily sort, filter, and rank your results faster than you can say blackjack. 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