No Pedagogical Advantage Found Between LibGuides and Other Web Page Information Literacy Tutorials
Authors: Miller Kimberly 
Published: February 2016

A Review of:
Bowen, A. (2014). LibGuides and web-based library guides in comparison: Is there a pedagogical advantage? Journal of Web Librarianship, 8(2), 147-171. doi:10.1080/19322909.2014.903709

Abstract

Objective – This study compares two versions of an online information literacy tutorial – one built with Springshare’s LibGuides and one built as a series of web pages – in order to determine if either platform provides a pedagogical advantage in delivering online instruction.

Design – Experimental, posttest only.

Setting – Large, public, primarily undergraduate four-year university in the Western United States of America with 16,000 full time equivalent student enrollment.

Subjects – The sample consists of 812 students enrolled in 25 sections of a 100-level Communications Studies course. Of those students, 89 responded to the study’s posttest survey (11% response rate).

Of the 89 respondents, 53 viewed the LibGuide tutorial: 12 respondents were male, 33 respondents were female, and 8 respondents did not report their gender. Of the 53 LibGuide participants, 47 responded to other demographic questions, and were primarily 18-20 years old (94%), first-year students (79%), and non-Communication Studies majors (91%).

The remaining 36 respondents viewed the web page tutorial: 7 respondents were male, 25 respondents were female, and 4 did not report their gender. Of the 32 respondents that provided demographic information, all participants were 18-20 years old, 31 of 32 were first-year students, and the majority were non-Communication Studies majors (78%).

Methods – Students completed an online tutorial designed to teach them information literacy skills necessary to find resources for a class debate. Each section was randomly assigned to one of two information literacy tutorials: 12 sections viewed a tutorial built with LibGuides and 13 sections viewed a web page tutorial. The two tutorials included identical instructional content and worksheet. Each of the tutorials’ six sections were tied to the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. A seventh section in both tutorials administered a voluntary survey. Six knowledge-based survey questions tested students’ abilities on the six skills covered in the tutorials. Three affective questions asked students to use a four-point Likert scale to report ease (1 = very easy, 4 = very difficult), clarity (1 = very clear, 4 = very unclear), and convenience (1 = very convenient, 4 = very inconvenient) of six research skills, including: identifying keywords and main concepts in a topic, identifying scholarly versus non-scholarly sources, finding relevant scholarly articles, locating a book’s call number in the library catalog and on the shelf, finding newspaper articles, and constructing an annotated bibliography. Two affective survey questions asked students to use a four-point Likert scale (1 = very significant increase, 4 = no increase) to rate the impact the tutorial had on their knowledge of and satisfaction with using the library in each of the six areas of research.

Main Results – The overall response patterns for the six information literacy knowledge-based questions were similar for both groups. Students who viewed the LibGuides tutorial performed better than the web page group on four of the six knowledge-based questions. The web page group performed better than the LibGuides group on two of the six knowledge-based questions. Across the board, students performed poorly on the first question, which measured students’ abilities to form a search
string (39.2% correct in the LibGuides group; 25.7% correct in the web page group), and on the fifth question which asked students to identify the best source of current information from a list of resources (32% correct in the LibGuides group; 17% correct in the web page group).

Response means on the first three affective questions indicate that students in both groups found searching for relevant scholarly articles and constructing an annotated bibliography to be more difficult than the other four skills. Additionally, students in the LibGuide group reported slightly higher means than the web page group concerning the clarity of finding newspaper articles, and were therefore less clear on the task. Students in the web page group reported slightly higher means than the LibGuide group when reporting the convenience of constructing an annotated bibliography, suggesting they found creating a bibliography more inconvenient. Students in both groups also responded similarly to the final two affective questions measuring the perceived impact the tutorial had on their knowledge of and satisfaction with using library resources.