Evaluation of the impact of the University of Canberra library's CD-ROM hands-on instruction program: an experimental study

Abstract

This experiment was designed to investigate the effectiveness of the CD- ROM hands on instruction program provided by the University of Canberra library by comparing it with demonstration only sessions and a group that received no instruction at all. The results indicated that the hands-on instruction program evaluated did not prove to be superior to a demonstration in providing students with necessary skills to search CD- ROM databases. A sample of 98 novice users enrolled in Research Skills were randomly allocated to three groups. The first group received hands on instruction on CD-ROM searching. The second group watched a demonstration using a liquid crystal display. The third group acted as a control group and received no instruction. Each group conducted a search on three pre-determined questions.
The experiment was conducted in three stages. The first stage was a pretest in which students searched the three search questions. The second stage was instruction. Two groups of students were instructed, either hands on or demonstration. The final stage was a post-test which involved searching the three questions used in the pre-test.
The following databases were used in the study: ERIC, MEDLINE and Sports Discus. The results were measured in terms of a number of search terms used, number of retrieved records, number of Boolean operators used, and a appropriate choice of a database. The statistical significance level among the groups was tested by the means of the technique of one-way analysis of variance to test The F test was used to compare differences between the different groups.
The results of this experiment indicated that groups of students instructed on either method of instruction, hands-on and demonstration, performed significantly better than the control group. However, there was no significant difference between the two methods of instruction. This research confirms the need for CD-ROM instruction for novice users if CD-ROM databases are to be used effectively by students. Furthermore, this result shows that demonstrations can be used as alternative methods of instruction.

Date of Award	1995
Original language	English
Supervisor	Peter Clayton (Supervisor) & Susan MacDougall (Supervisor)