Using the Library helps students to get better grades!
In 2011 the University of Exeter Library took part in the JISC Library Impact Data Project along with 6 other UK universities, to investigate the hypothesis to "prove a statistically significant correlation between library usage and student attainment". The project was led by the University of Huddersfield who had already discovered a strong correlation between library usage and student attainment across different disciplines, and wanted to test to see if the correlation existed across a number of UK universities.
The University provided the following anonymised data for all 2009/10 graduates (undergraduates):
- final degree result
- total number of books/resources borrowed over the duration of their course
- total number of logins to the Electronic Library (and Shibboleth authenticated resources), from August 2008-
The data was crunched for all 7 participating universities and the result was that across all the institutions a statistical significance was proved between book loans, e-resources use and student attainment. Those obtaining higher degree results statistically used library resources more than those obtaining lower grades, proving that a relationship exists between library use and student attainment. Obviously, the results do not indicate a causal relationship between library use and final grade - there are many other contributing factors which affect student attainment.
In terms of the results for the University of Exeter, a significant difference was found between book loans and e-resources use between the two higher degrees (1st and 2:1) and two lower degrees (2:2 and 3rd) - proving a statistical significance between library use and student attainment at the University of Exeter.
The graph below shows the average library resource use by grade - as you can see, those obtaining higher grades and higher average library resource use:
More detailed analysis of the results will be made available to Colleges shortly and if you'd like some more information about the project and the results, please contact your Academic Support Consultant.
