Dissertation Information for Elizabeth Gale Eaton NAME: - Elizabeth Gale Eaton
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science
SCHOOL:
- University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (USA) (1990)
ADVISORS: - William M. Shaw Jr.
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - Robert N. Broadus - Evelyn Hope Daniel - Peter Arnold Ornstein - Marilyn Lea Miller
MPACT Status: Fully Complete
Title: Effects of spatial skills and route uncertainty on the ability of fifth-graders and high school students to locate known items on library shelves
Abstract: Library users often seem to get lost between catalog and shelf. This study's purpose was to help understand this confusion. Twenty-one high school students and 20 fifth graders were recruited to hunt books in a previously unfamiliar library. Their searches were timed and mapped. Their ability to use Dewey Decimal Classification was measured by timed book retrievals from one wall, and their large-scale spatial ability was measured by angle accuracy in mental rotation and perspective-taking tasks.
Three hypotheses were tested: (1) that the efficiency and accuracy of book retrievals from the stacks would be better predicted by their library locational skills and large-scale spatial skills in combination than by their library locational skills alone; (2) that spatial ability would contribute more to the speed and accuracy of fifth graders than of high school students; and (3) that the efficiency and accuracy of retrievals from the stacks would be correlated with the route uncertainty calculated for each target book. The null hypotheses could not be rejected; no direct relationship could be shown between efficiency and either spatial ability or environmental complexity.
The lack of significant results might be attributed in part to the high competence of the volunteer subjects. Observation showed, however, that even these very confident library users were sometimes confused and frustrated, and that some searches were more difficult than others. Environmental features appeared to interact with subjects' strategies for orienting themselves and narrowing their searches; a rough taxonomy of strategies was developed for further study.
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MPACT Scores for Elizabeth Gale Eaton A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-01-31 06:20:14
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