The 100-page study presents data from 1,140 college students from 4-year colleges in the United States concerning their use of specialized library technology, group and individual study rooms. The report enables its end users to answer questions such as: which students use individual and group study rooms? Which use specialized technology rooms? How often do they use them? Generally, how easy do they feel it is for them to reserve a room and how do they feel about they length of time that may sometimes have to wait to reserve a room? What are their suggestions for improving the features available in the rooms and how they are managed?
Data in the report is presented in the aggregate and then broken out separately for sixteen different variables including but not limited to: college grades, gender, income level, year of college standing, SAT/ACT scores, regional origin, age, sexual orientation, race & ethnicity, college major and other personal variables, and by Carnegie class, enrollment size and public/private status of the survey participants institutions of higher education.
Just a few of the report’s many findings are that:
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Over 51% of respondents reported reserving a group study room. The percentage was higher for respondents from Doctoral Universities: Moderate and Higher Research Activity (66.80%) and Doctoral Universities: Highest Research Activity (56.62%) than for BA and master’s colleges (44.14% and 46.46%, respectively).
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Students living in fraternity or sorority housing were substantially more likely to have reserved a single-person room (41.18%) than students in other types of housing; students living alone off-campus were least likely (14.85%).
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Students in BA-level institutions were the most likely to report being able to get a study room usually or always (59.10%), while students at doctoral universities with the highest research activity were the least likely (48.12%).