Commercial Database Design vs. Library Terminology Comprehension: Why Do Students Print Abstracts Instead of Full-Text Articles?

Abstract

When asked to print the full text of an article, many undergraduate college students print the abstract instead of the full text. This study seeks to determine the underlying cause(s) of this confusion. In this quantitative study, participants (n=40) performed five usability tasks to assess ease of use and usefulness of five commercial library databases and were surveyed on their understanding of library terminology. The study revealed that more than half of the students correctly defined the term "Abstract" and over 75 percent understood "full text." However, only 25 percent of the students were able to successfully complete all five database tasks.ver the past 10 to 15 years, while working at the reference desk, the authors have come across hundreds of printouts of journal article abstracts lying unclaimed next to the library's printers. These orphan abstracts beg the question, "Do students know the difference between an abstract and the full text of an article before they hit the print button?" For all of the abstracts that were left unclaimed, the authors knew that many more were being given to professors as examples of journal articles and being used as sources for research papers. In a previous research study, the authors found that, of 39 students who had been exposed to the concepts of "abstract" and "full text" through library instruction, only 62 percent were able to find and print the full text of five articles related to their research assignment. The remaining 38 percent of students printed at least one abstract in place of the full text. 1The authors were interested in studying the underlying cause or causes of this disconnect. Did our students not know the difference between an abstract and the full text of an article, even when they had received instruction on these concepts? Or were the database results pages designed so that the full text of the article was too difficult to find? Or was there a combination of factors leading to the students' obvious confusion?

Understanding the Language of Information Literacy

“…In addition, the students indicated that library language could be more accessible or user-friendly, thus reducing the need for explaining the meaning of a resource or service. After noticing hundreds of unclaimed printouts of article abstracts, Imler and Eichelberger (2014) narrowed their study to the meaning of abstract, a decidedly library term, and full-text, which is, arguably, a more accessible, user-friendly term. The authors found that 75% of the undergraduates surveyed could correctly identify the meaning of full-text (50% for the term abstract), but only 25% of the study participants could correctly retrieve the full-text of an article across several different databases, which suggested less of an issue with language and more so with database design.…”

Electronic Resource Availability Studies: An Effective Way to Discover Access Errors

“…Later, as librarians became aware of usability research methods, they applied these techniques to test patron access to electronic resources. To note but a few examples from this ample literature: Cockrell and Jayne (2002) asked students to find eresources using library systems; Cummings and Johnson (2003) observed students using OpenURL linking; Wrubel (2007) offered a concise overview of e-resource usability testing; O'Neill (2009) considered how best to instruct patrons in OpenURL linking based on usability results; next generation catalogues (Majors, 2012) and discovery services (Asher, Duke, & Wilson, 2013;Fagan, Mandernach, Nelson, Paulo, & Saunders, 2012;Williams & Foster, 2011) have been studied thoroughly; Kress, Del Bosque and Ipri (2011) conducted a study to find out why students placed unnecessary ILL requests; and Imler and Eichelberger (2014) investigated how confusing vocabulary acts as a barrier to full-text. Considered as a whole, this usability research demonstrates librarians' awareness that the problems leading to full-text nonavailability are complex, arising from both library systems and human error.…”

The Language of Information Literacy: Do Students Understand?

“…Bonnie Imler and Michelle Eichelberger analyzed students' research sessions to discern between "ease of use" and "usefulness" in library web page design, noting that the attractiveness of an easy-to-use search may "cause the researcher to lose sight of the …added value of library material over a simple Google search." 4 Students in the study printed abstracts rather than the full-text articles for two reasons. Either they were unable to locate the print function on the web page, or they were unclear on the meaning of the term abstract.…”