Learning for the future

Online student evaluation of generic and context-specific library skills tutorials

Abstract

This paper reports on a project stimulated by two major challenges facing higher education in the twenty-first century; massification and the citizenisation of academies. This empirical study reports on the use of emergent technologies, in the acquisition of information, for diverse cohorts of students enrolled in two scientific subjects (n=47). A generic online library skills tutorial (LST) in one subject is compared to an embedded virtual, context-specific LST in another. Student attitudinal evaluation, both affective and cognitive, was measured by an 18-item online survey. The rich qualia showed a ten-fold difference which adds to a body of knowledge which was reinforced by an objective measure, a graded assignment. As consumers, the students have been valued and voiced their demands. Lecturers and librarians need to lead in this climate of change to develop a creative and emergent, reciprocal non-linear mechanism to build on this trajectory and plan a future for learning.