Spring 2022 Student Survey

As one of our assessment strategies, we undertake a large-scale survey of faculty and students every few years to give longitudinal data on library performance and better understand unmet needs.  Previously, we used LibQual as our survey. This past year we shifted to a homegrown tool.  1,588 students participated in the Spring 2022 survey.  The full report covers the responses while this blog post will highlight a few more specific breakdowns not covered in the linked report.   

One of the factors correlated with higher satisfaction was mode of instruction.  “Online only” students rated UTA Libraries higher than “in-seat only” or “mixed mode” students.  The survey used a 9-point scale with 9 being extremely satisfied and 1 being extremely unsatisfied.  Undergraduate “online only” students gave UTA Libraries an average of 8.18 for UTA Libraries Overall while “in-seat only” undergraduates’ average was 7.54 and “mixed mode” undergraduate students averaged 7.68.  Graduate students followed a similar pattern.  Graduate “online only” students averaged 8.27 while “in-seat only” grad students averaged 7.86 and ‘mixed mode’ grad students averaged 7.85.  For both groups, “online only” students responded at a lower rate than their population.

One section of the survey asked students to rank different library services (p.6 in the full report). While it was expected undergraduates would rate study space highly, graduates also rated it quite high. On average, graduate students ranked 24/7 Access to Central Library and Quiet Study Spaces as their top two choices (p. 6).  An analysis of open-ended comments by graduate students also reflected this emphasis (p. 12).  PhD students only made up about 14% of graduate survey respondents, but their average ranking differed from other graduate students. PhD students rated collections first followed by 24/7 access, Interlibrary Loan, and quiet study spaces. 

Because of the emphasis on quiet study spaces throughout the survey, UTA Libraries hopes to renovate them during the 2022-2023 academic year.  In the summer of 2022, UTA Libraries followed up with three other assessments on quiet study spaces.  They sought to better understand ideal study space features for quiet floors.

Sense of Belonging, which can be connected to student academic persistence, dropped in 2022 when compared to a 2019 UTA Libraries survey.  In 2019, 73.28% of survey participants strongly or somewhat agreed to the statement, “I feel a sense of belonging to UTA and the campus community,” which dropped to 63.13% in Spring 2022. However, graduate and undergraduate students shifted in opposite directions.  Graduate students who strongly or somewhat agreed to sense of belonging increased 7.42% to 71.36% while undergraduates dropped 16.54% to 59.68%.

I would speculate that the COVID shift to online education impacted students’ sense of connection to UTA. For those undergraduates who said COVID negatively impacted their educational experience, 54.93% strongly or somewhat agreed to feeling a sense of belonging.  For those undergraduates who either said COVID had a positive impact or a neutral impact, 65.07% strongly or somewhat agreed to a feeling a sense of belonging.  During the first semester of COVID in Spring 2020, I interviewed 5 students about the impact of COVID on their educational experience.  The lack of connections to their fellow students and staff was a theme that appeared in those interviews as well.