Listening to Our Students: Enhancing Library Instruction Through a Qualitative Assessment of Student Feedback

Abstract

In our ongoing effort to foster a culture of customer service \nexcellence, Texas A&M University Libraries uses LibQUAL+ to conduct \nannual reviews of service quality as measured by those who matter most; our \npatrons. This yearly practice reflects our belief that, “only customers judge \nquality … [and that] … all other judgments are essentially irrelevant.” \n(Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Berry, 2006). In an attempt to apply this \nphilosophy to library instruction the authors examined approximately 25,000 \npost-instruction questionnaires collected from undergraduate and graduate \nstudents between 2005 and 2010. Free-text comments from the questionnaires \nwere transferred to ATLAS.ti and the data was coded to identify common \nthemes, patterns and issues across a range of demographics. \nThis study had two aims. Our first objective was to capitalize on the rich source \nof qualitative data that student feedback provides as a basis for the development \nof instructional training programs. This is in contrast to the typical situation in \nwhich librarians, reflecting in isolation, seek to improve only their own \ninstruction sessions. Using student feedback at a programmatic level, however, \nintroduces a new dynamic; peer-to-peer learning. This simple initiative, we \nargue, takes the use of qualitative data to a new level and, in doing so, \nrepresents a significant advance in the training and development of instruction \nlibrarians. Our second objective was to expand and enrich the discourse on the \nscholarship of teaching within bibliographic instruction. We feel there should be \na greater consideration within the literature of other voices, especially those of \nour students.

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