G. F. Atkinson and G. E. Toosood University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario, Conado NzL3GI
II
The Effectiveness of a Resource Center Operation
Operating drop-in centers offering learning aids and tutorial assistance has become common practice in chemistry departments over the past few years. Such centen vary greatly in their contents and operating style, but are usuallv seen as successful. often on the basis of impressionistic opinion rather than of judgment based on evidence. The likelihood of havine to relocate the freshman resource center operated by this department raised questions of the cost i t would be a o ~ r o ~ r i ato t e incur in the light of experience, of the size of &om needed, and similar matters. While an a t t e m ~ thad been made to keep a loahook of the operation, this proved least successf"1 when the room was well filled and the tutor busy with some students and unable to survey the, comings and goings of others. After examining various ways of gathering additional information we modified part of a questionnaire used in a study of a resource-center-based innovative secondary school for the purpose.' Early in the winter term, this was used to collect evidence about use of the center during the fall term. The questionnaire was distributed in lectures and thus failed to reach students who happened to be absent that day. Reasonably useful returns were expected and obtained without correcting for these omissions.
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Findings The course offered in the fall term to freshmen is taught in five lecture divisions. For some purposes, results of the questionnaire have been lumped for the whole course, and for other purposes, the divisions are distinguished. The divisions were: students intending to major in biological or earth sciences, students intending to major in chemistry or physics, students from the faculty of mathematics, students enrolled in the cooperative programs in applied physics and applied chemistry, and students entering with more than 75% in a second high school chemistry course (usually a Chem Study variant).
Use versus Nonuse Of 373 replies received, 200 students had visited the center a t least once (54%). The proportion of students ham each lecture division who visited the center ranged widely from coop (70%) to maths (26%). This information is shown fully in Figure 1. Frequency of Use Of the 200 users, one-half visited the center one, two. or three times during the term. Those v~sitingmore than ten times were lumped in the returns, and when necessary for numerical estimates, these are assumed to have averaged 12'visits. Figure 2 shows the overall distribution of visitors making a given number of visits; while Figure 3 shows the distribution of overall visits by students visiting a given number of times. This information is broken down by lecture division in Fiwre 1.
'Research Office, York County Board of Education, Report: Thornlea Reoiew Progmm, (1971). *Anon., Chemistry in Canada, p. 9, (February 1914). 108
/ Journal of Chemical Education
Fqdre 1 ..se of R e s o ~ r c eCenter ~y s1,oenls from vareaus lec1.w a " 8 sons hole Inat tnree oars 01 each grmp are percenlages of lofa clasr wna.e t h e 9 ng e oar s percentage ol lnal dab s o n only See lexl lor slgnificance of divisions
Purpose of Visit Invited to indicate three principal purposes of their visits, the visitors supplied a total of 519 responses. These must not he considered as mutually exclusive or noninteracting, but since many did not rank-order their purposes, all were treated equally for presentation. Their breakdown into categories offered on the questionnaire is shown in Figure 4, which reveals that slightly over half of all responses relate to the resources made available. Satisfaction Almost all visitors (192) answered the question about their reaction to the center. Results are shown in Figure 5. Not sur~risindy,the students who visited least often show somewhat less eatisfaction, but even for this group, more than half (when non-responders are included) were satisfied. Comments Twenty students suggested various changes in the center's hours of operation. Four urged enlargement of the space, and four others suggested a catalog of the hooks and materials. Four nonusers were unaware of the center's existence or location. No other comment appeared more than once. Discussion Figure 1 shows that only in one division-the mathematics students for whom chemistry is an elective--is the use of the center signally lower than in proportion to the
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