Week 10: Information Experiments

In the project “Studying Students: The Undergraduate Research Project at the University of Rochester” Foster and Gibson write about their ethnographic project on finding out more on how undergraduate students at the University of Rochester conduct research, their habits, and library needs. I believe this is an information-related experiment because Foster and Gibson are “interested in how students write their research papers and what services, resources, and facilities would be most useful to them,” (Foster and Gibson 2007, p. 5).

In this study, these are the variables I would identify:

Independent – undergraduate students (never changes)

Dependent – How students’ research/student practices (dependent on the students) and how the librarians encouraged help through advertising, deciding on what they could do to improve student participation in librarian assistance by testing timing, encouraging students through free stuff (cookies/coffee), and using different outreaching techniques (e.g. IM, reference desk, etc.) (dependent on the librarians and how the students use these) 

Controlled – the space of the library (a controlled space that never changes)

I would see this as an experiment because they are testing how undergraduate students do their research and how they can help improve this as librarians. This in particular is a unique experiment because it does not fall into traditional standards. First and foremost it is an ethnographic study, researching student habits. However, I think it can be considered an experiment because it has the independent variable of the undergraduate students, the controlled space of the library, and finally the dependent variables of the researchers changing the ways they reach out to students and discovering what is most effective. In the end they discovered that the best technique for helping students was through face-to-face contact (2007, p.19). They also came up with a list of ways for improving their library to create a “student-centered academic library,” (2007, p. 83).

Of course, this was based on only part of their study, as there are many dependent variables that they include. I chose this specific experiment because I liked that it took an ethnographic approach and it shows that experiments can appear in more than just a scientific study.

Resource: 

Foster, N. F., & Gibbons, S. L. (2007). Studying students: The undergraduate research project at the University of Rochester. Assoc of Cllge & Rsrch Libr.