Academic Librarians Should Be Sensitive to Language and Cultural Barriers When Providing Reference Service to International Students. A review of: Curry, Ann and Deborah Copeman. “Reference Service to International Students: A Field Stimulation Research Study.” Journal of Academic Librarianship 31.5 (Sep. 2005): 409‐20.
Notice bibliographique
Résumé
<b>Objective</b> – To evaluate the quality of reference service provided to non‐native, English‐speaking international students in academic libraries.<br><b>Design</b> – Field stimulation (unobtrusive testing).<br><b>Setting</b> – Eleven college and university libraries in the lower mainland of British Columbia, Canada, in the fall of 2003.<br><b>Subjects</b> – Library staff offering reference service at one of the participating libraries.<br><b>Methods</b> – The study utilized field stimulation, whereby an individual, or “proxy,” posed as a library user and initiated a reference encounter with library staff at each institution. In each case the proxy asked the same question to the library staff member. After the interaction was completed the proxy recorded all observed behaviours. Data were collected using a checklist of actions; a narrative record written by the proxy; and several evaluative questions. Each library was visited by the same proxy on two separate occasions for a total of 22 visits, of which 20 instances resulted in usable data. The narrative recordings of the reference encounters were analyzed using an open coding process.<br><b>Main results</b> – In 75% of the cases, the proxy was “‘satisfied” or “very satisfied” with help received from the library staff member and was “likely to” or “definitely would return to the staff member” in the future. The reference encounters lasted between a few minutes to half an hour in length, with most lasting between 5 and 15 minutes. Encounters that were brief (less than 5 minutes) resulted in an evaluation of “dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied” and “not likely to” or “definitely would not return.” Encounters where the library staff member extended an invitation to the proxy to return in the future were all rated with “high satisfaction” and “willingness to return.” The following reference service actions were observed in at least half of the encounters:• Asked questions for clarification (20)• Avoided overwhelming the user with information (19)• Provided instruction on how to use information sources (18)• Explained what he / she was doing at every stage (17)• Demonstrated awareness of language barriers and modified his /her behaviour accordingly (16)• Had a respectful attitude toward the user and her question (16)• Looked approachable (15)• Used library jargon (12)The remaining reference service actions from the checklist were observed in less than half the encounters:• Accompanied the user to information sources (9)• Invited the user to return if she needed more help (6)• Asked the user if she had found what she needed (4)• Referred the user to someone else (2)The data collected from the narrative recordings of the reference encounters resulted in the identification of 17 themes. Most of these themes corresponded with the literature reviewed as important qualities for positive reference interactions. Nine of these themes were found to correlate with the proxy’s positive evaluation of the reference encounter: approachability, awareness of language barriers, asking questions, rephrasing, explanation, library jargon, instruction, early termination of interview, patience, and follow up.<br><b>Conclusion</b> – This preliminary study documents the actions of reference staff in academic libraries when answering a question from an international student. The researchers found a relationship between some library staff behaviours and the user’s level of satisfaction and likelihood to return to the staff member in the future. The research suggests that reference staff pay special attention to the needs of non‐native English speakers in order to provide a positive reference encounter.
Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.
Comment cette classification a été obtenuedéplier
Prédiction distillée sur la base complète
Imitation des enseignantsNi prévalence calibrée, ni vérité terrain. Validation humaine à venir. Apprise à partir de 10 348 étiquettes directes de Codex et de 10 348 étiquettes directes de Gemma. Le mode candidate est l'union des têtes enseignantes seuillées; le consensus est leur intersection. Ces sorties portent le statut machine_predicted_unvalidated et ne sont ni des étiquettes humaines ni des étiquettes directes de modèles de pointe.
Scores Codex et Gemma par catégorie
| Catégorie | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Métarecherche | 0,009 | 0,003 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens strict) | 0,001 | 0,000 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens large) | 0,002 | 0,000 |
| Bibliométrie | 0,002 | 0,003 |
| Études des sciences et des technologies | 0,001 | 0,000 |
| Communication savante | 0,003 | 0,023 |
| Science ouverte | 0,008 | 0,004 |
| Intégrité de la recherche | 0,000 | 0,002 |
| Charge utile insuffisante (le modèle a refusé de juger) | 0,001 | 0,000 |
Scores machine (provisoires)
Les deux têtes enseignantes du modèle étudiant, lues sur ce travail. Un score ordonne la base pour la relecture; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie, et le statut de validation accompagne chaque rangée tel quel.
Scores de référence d'un modèle non mature (critères de maturité non atteints, 7 itérations). Un score ordonne; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · tel quel depuis la passe de notation : score_only signifie que le nombre peut ordonner les travaux, et qu'aucune étiquette de catégorie n'en découleClassification
machine, non validéePrédiction automatique; les deux têtes enseignantes s’accordent sur ce qui est montré ici.
Le détail, modèle par modèle et score par score, se trouve en fin de page sous « Comment cette classification a été obtenue ».