Some Shameless Self-Promotion

Certificate

Originally uploaded by ScruffyNerf.

Earlier this week, I received a letter in the mail from the ILS department of SCSU. I was a bit speechless when I opened the letter to see this certificate inside the envelope. The paper reads “Certificate of Superior Performance in Research,” then my name, and the title of my computer self-efficacy research paper. It is signed by my professor. I have no idea of its value, having never heard of such a certificate. However, I’m willing to take it at face value. I will say that my husband was unimpressed.

Wow! What a nice way to end this class – and the program. The fact that this last semester was such a great experience is doing wonders for how I will remember my time at SCSU (I guess I’m easy to please).

Computer Self-Efficacy in the Academic Library

I’ve been meaning to post a link the research paper on computer self-efficacy that I wrote this past semester. I admit that I have been deliberately staying away from computers after work – and as such, blogging has been a very low priority. Anyway, for those who were interested, the paper (Computer Self-Efficacy and the Academic Library Employee: An Examination of Their Relationship) can be found here.

Now, I Can Celebrate!

Tonight, my professor for ILS680-Evaluation & Research posted grades for both our research paper and the class itself. While I was fairly certain that I would pass the class, I was extremely anxious about what the professor would have to say about my paper. This professor has a reputation for being tough (but fair)and for expecting quality work. She is the type of professor that compels me to work harder, to give more of myself, to try to do the best that I can, etc. The bottom line is that I did much better than I expected. I am thrilled with the grade that I got on my paper. The professor had some excellent suggestions – things that I wish that I had been able to see while I was writing the paper, of course.

Anyway, from the beginning of my time at SCSU, I wasn’t sure what to do about ILS680 and its research requirement. I put off taking the class for as long as possible. I agonized over which professor’s section I should take. I worried about topics. Beyond that, I wasn’t sure how much a research class would add to my MLS experience. However, I can honestly say that now I believe this to be THE most valuable class out of the 12 I have taken. It was a wonderful experience despite the fact that it was often painful. No other class has given me such a great feeling of accomplishment. I admit that while I felt this feeling of accomplishment from the moment that I turned in my paper, I have a much deeper feeling of satisfaction after having received my grade.

As I said earlier, I can now celebrate and enjoy a sense of accomplishment for having gotten this far!

It Is A Good Night

I turned in my paper today.

I finished a critique of a classmate’s paper.

I burned a CD of my portfolio.

Now, I only need to write a critique of my own paper – and mail the CD.

Life is good! I can’t remember the last time I felt this relaxed.

Computer Self-Efficacy Data

I learned something interesting this week. If you copy and paste tables from Excel 2007 into WordPress, Google Reader will not display the post. Additionally, WordPress doesn’t really care for this either. It gets slow and sluggish – although it does eventually save and publish the tables. I plan to leave the original post alone, but probably won’t copy any more tables into any blog posts.

Anyway, I wrote a post earlier this week with some of the results from my computer self-efficacy survey of academic librarians. While I saw the post in Bloglines, it appears as if Google Reader plans to simply ignore it. Many people were curious about the results, so here they are. I do plan to do some posts with narrative about my conclusions etc. This will most likely be after I have officially turned my paper in and completed the rest of the work for my class.

So, What’s Left?

I spent this weekend finishing up some of the different sections of my paper. As it stands, the paper is essentially done. I will probably re-read it in a day or two in order to look for any remaining grammatical and/or style errors. I’m making myself stay away from it for next day or two so that I will be able to read it with fresh eyes. I still have to do a self-critique and really feel that I need some space in order to do that effectively.

My portfolio is also essentially done. Now that I have finished my paper, I can finish this, make sure all of the links work correctly and burn it to a CD. I then have to mail the CD (and my Student MLS Degree Audit Checklist) to the ILS department. I plan to put the finished touches on the portfolio today and, hopefully, get the CD made and ready for mailing also.

For remaining classwork, I then need to write my self-critique, write a final journal entry of reflections on the class and actually turn the paper in to the professor. All work is due on Friday. Not too bad at all!!

Some CSE Survey Results

I am currently finishing up final edits on my research paper on computer self-efficacy in academic library workers. It is now titled – Computer Self-Efficacy and the Academic Library Employee: An Examination of Their Relationship (and yes, titles are not my forte). Several people have asked about reading the paper and getting the results. I’m not quite ready to share the paper (but will share with those who asked to see it after the semester is over – and possibly after grades are in). However, I do want to publicly share the findings from the survey.

The following tables give the mean computer self-efficacy levels for those demographic variables that turned out to be major determinants. Some notes: SD stands for standard deviation; Total # is the total population for that category and # is the total percentage of the entire population (which is 167).

Computer Self-Efficacy Levels by Technical Support Model

Category	Mean	SD	High	Low	Total #	%
Entire Population	153.29	16.06	179	81	167	100
Library Systems Support	151.3	16.93	179	111	81	48.5
Combined Library/IT Support	155.08	11.51	172	126	24	14.37
IT Support	154.9	16.03	178	81	41	24.55
Vendor Support	147	n/a	147	147	1	0.6
No Formal Support	135.67	34.15	173	106	3	1.8
Other Means of Tech Support	157.75	6.02	163	150	4	2.4
Multiple Means of Support	160.23	10.65	177	142	13	7.78

 

Compute Self-Efficacy Levels by Age

Age	Mean	SD	High	Low	Total #	%
20-29 Years of Age	156.92	10.05	171	134	50	29.94
30-39 Years of Age	153.74	15.18	179	111	68	40.72
40-49 Years of Age	155.51	16.54	175	115	29	17.37
50-59 Years of Age	140.07	28.37	179	81	15	8.98
>60 Years of Age	137.8	16.81	167	126	5	2.99

 

Computer Self-Efficacy Levels by Sex

Sex	Mean	S.D.	High	Low	Total #	%
Female	154.03	15.52	179	81	137	82.04
Male	149.93	18.27	171	123	30	17.96

 

Computer Self-Efficacy Levels by Educational Attainment

Degree	Mean	S.D.	High	Low	Total #	%
High School Degree	156	16.44	174	126	7	4.19
Bachelors Degree	156.6	11.93	177	141	25	14.97
Masters Degree	152.57	16.85	179	81	129	77.25
Doctorate	152	14.64	175	135	6	3.59

 

Computer Self-Efficacy Level by MLS or Equivalent

MLS or Equivalent	Mean	S.D.	High	Low	Total #	%
Library School	155.48	10.09	171	135	16	9.58
No MLS	155.57	14.06	177	126	21	12.57
MLS or Equivalent	152.66	16.96	179	81	130	77.84

 

Computer Self-Efficacy Levels by Length of Career

Length of Career	Mean	S.D.	High	Low	Total #	%
<10 Years	154.18	15.64	179	81	108	64.67
10-19 Years	154.63	14.48	178	125	41	24.55
20-29 Years	148	18.7	176	123	12	7.19
30-39 Years	139	25.88	167	106	5	2.99
>40 Years	137	0	137	137	1	0.6

 

Computer Self-Efficacy Levels by Job Classification

Job Classification	Mean	S.D.	High	Low	Total #	%
Library Assistant	152.71	15.23	177	126	38	22.75
Other	156.83	9.5	168	147	6	3.59
Professional Librarian	153.3	16.63	179	81	123	73.65

 Computer Self-Efficacy Levels by Job Satisfaction

Job Satisfaction	Mean	S.D.	High	Low	Total #	%
Extremely Satisified	160.44	11.27	179	125	36	26.28
Mostly Satisfied	152.9	15.98	179	81	98	58.68
Neither Satisf. Nor Unsatisf.	137.33	19.86	171	106	9	5.38
Somewhat Unsatisfied	151.32	16.53	175	111	22	13.17
Unsatisfied	137.5	0.71	138	137	2	1.2

 

Computer Self-Efficacy Levels by Computer Experience

Computer Experience	Mean	S.D.	High	Low	Total #	%
Extremely Experienced	162.7	11.08	179	131	50	29.94
Much Experience	152.42	14.03	177	115	96	57.49
Some Experience	134.9	18.07	163	81	21	12.57
Little Experience	0	0	0	0	0	0
No Experience	0	0	0	0	0	0

 

Computer Self-Efficacy Levels by Computer Training

Computer Training	Mean	S.D.	High	Low	Total #	%
No Training	154.81	16.71	179	106	36	21.56
Training	152.88	15.92	179	81	131	78.44

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . . It’s Coming

Within the next 10 days my last class will be over, and I will officially be done with the program. I’m surprised by how excited I am. Although, why this surprises me is mystery. Overall, I somewhat feel as if I am coming out of a two and a half year hibernation – everything seems bright, shiny and new. The fact that spring seems to have arrived is definitely adding my lighthearted and happy mood. Today, the sky was blue, the grass was green and the temperature was quite nice.

While I certainly have done non-school-related things since I started the program back in the fall of 2005, I do feel as if I have put a good portion of my life on hold. My husband has long grown tired of hearing my stock responses to almost every major question - “Let’s wait until I finish school,” ”Please, just let me finish school,” ”No, I can’t because I have homework that I need to do.” I have lost count of how many things I have put off because of school. Partly, this is because of money. Paying for tuition has had a huge impact on our lives. I actually just finished paying off the credit card bill for this last semester. Yeah, no more tuition!!!!!

So, I’m starting to feel human again. I wasn’t entirely aware of how much of myself I was repressing. But, I’m ready to feel less constrained and less constricted. I’m willing to bet that I will probably have some adjusting to do and will probably feel like I am at loose ends for a while. But, it will be good. I will have my life back – maybe I can get back to gym, maybe I can clean my house, maybe I can detach this laptop from my hip. Wow, it all sounds incredibly wonderful!

Wow! This Might Be Real

I am deeply engrossed in writing the first draft of my paper for ILS680-Evaluation & Research. While I don’t necessarily feel terribly good about my project in its entirety, I am starting to believe that I will actually be able to finish sometime this month. Due to the fact that I was recently very sick with the nastiest sore throat/swollen glands ever, I got seriously behind in my project. Fortunately, I have recovered, but have been incredibly worried/nervous/petrified that I would not be able to finish this class – and as such, complete the graduation requirements this semester. But now, I am making progress. I should have an entire first draft ready to post to the course site sometime tomorrow. Once I have done that, I need to work on two critques of classmates’ papers, do extensive rewrites of my own, finish my capstone portfolio and do a self-critique of my own finished paper. All of this needs to be done by April 26th.

Despite this all, tonight I have made enough progress on my paper to actually believe that within a couple of weeks I will be done with school. How exciting is that?? I find it very difficult to believe - especially since I am not going to Connecticut for graduation. I’m pretty sure that finishing won’t seem very real. However, I am looking for to be done - very much so. Anyway, it all seems to be happening. Yeah!

I Have An Excel-Strength Headache

I am currently knee deep in data analysis for my research project  - and feel as if I am drowning in a sea of data. With 167 complete responses to my survey and, essentially 16 different points to which I could compare results, I am having a difficult time making sense of it all. I have about 100 different spreadsheets  – many that I have abandoned because something wasn’t quite right. I do feel as if I might be starting to see some patterns, but am still a long way from where I need to be. I’ve never been very good at dealing with statistics and probably won’t be in a hurry to do this type of research again.

Beyond my Excel-strength headache, I’m starting to realize that the end of the semester is approaching. I have HUGE amounts of work left to do for my paper and am starting to slip into full-blown panic mode, the likes of which I haven’t experienced in many, many years. I have to keep reminding myself that students pass this course all of the time and that it is doable. And now, I need to get back to work. It might be a good, long while before I actually see the light of day again.