PROBLEMAS OPERACIONALES

In this section, competency studies employing the above two methodologies are examined with a focus on their methodological design and data analysis.

2.5.3.1. Studies Using Delphi method

Fiedrich (1985) conducted a two-round Delphi study across the country to

identify competencies needed by both library and information science professionals in the next ten years. The study aimed at eliciting input from leading practitioners to reach consensus on the importance of selected competencies for future practitioners. Thus, the thirty-four competencies, identified from previous literature, were generic and not related to a particular sub-field of the LIS profession. The panel of experts was randomly

selected from members of four primary associations in LIS field and consisted of 300 people to allow for the high drop-out rate of typical Delphi studies. The response rate for this study was 51%. In the first round, panelists were asked to rate the importance of the competencies on a four-point Likert scale, and the responses were examined for statistical analysis, such as frequencies, mean and standard deviation; in the second round,

questionnaires with the indication of distribution of the mean scores from the first round were returned to the panelists, and their responses were analyzed and the final rank order of the competencies was identified.

information studies from two different perspectives, Chandler (1995) conducted a two- round Delphi study to elicit input from experts in law librarianship, and compared the results to those from the survey study conducted among a random sample of private law librarians. The survey method will be examined in the next section that focuses on studies employing this particular methodology.

In selecting experts for the Delphi panel, Chandler used research productivity and professional activity as the criteria to ensure the panelist’s expertise in the investigated field. Fifty-two experts were identified according to the criteria and the response rate for this study was 87%. In the first round, they were asked to list the ten most important professional preparation competences for law librarianship education, and 389

competences were reported. In the second round, the 389 competences were reduced and compiled to a list of forty-two, and the experts were asked to rate the importance of these competences on a five-point Likert scale. Results from the study were cross-tabulated with demographic variables such as type of libraries, job title, and year of experience, etc., in order to determine if there was any significant difference between perceived

competences and various factors that might have affected the perception.

Prestamo (2000) conducted a two-round Delphi study to develop a consensus on inventory model of technology and computer skills for academic reference librarians. A number of fourteen panelists were selected based on their publication records and stature as presenters at national library conferences, and from the officers and members of the board of directors of a state chapter of the Association of College and Research Libraries. In the first round, panelists were provided a list of technology and computer skills and

required of academic reference librarians. Results from the first round were analyzed and sorted, then a condensed list of statements was used to create the questionnaire for the second round, where panelists were asked to rate the importance of each item using a five-point Likert scale. Results from the second round came back with a reasonable degree of apparent consensus so that a third round was not necessary. In data analysis, ratings of the skills were collapsed two categories: negative and positive, and Chi square analysis was conducted to determine if there was any significant difference between these two types of response for each skill, and indicate the level of consensus.

2.5.3.2. Studies Using Survey Method

Survey method has been a popular instrument for competency validation studies, all of which had to go through three steps in implementing this method – selecting subjects, creating the questionnaire and analyzing collected data. A review of the literature will be presented in the sequence of the three steps to examine how different studies concur or differ in these aspects.

Identification of Study Subjects

Study population is usually determined by the investigated topic and consists of people whose knowledge and opinions are most relevant to the studied competencies, such as professionals, their peers, their area supervisors, their administrators, educators and related tangential professionals. The size of population varies from study to study. If a study is conducted nation-wide or the population is too large to be manageable, the normal approach is to select a random sample as the subjects to represent the population. In Chandler’s (1995) study of law librarians’ competencies, a total of 346 law librarians were randomly selected using the systematic sampling technique from the population that

worked in law libraries that met the type and size requirements of the study. In the attitudinal study conducted by Todaro (1984) to assess opinion or attitude toward competencies of children’s librarians, seven groups of professionals due to their

proximity to or knowledge of, interest in and experience with children’s librarians were identified and a random sample of 3312 people was selected. Pfister (1982) selected a random sample of 523 educators from 1872 schools in Florida to determine the

perceptions of teachers, principles and media specialists regarding a list of competencies for school media specialists proposed by professional leaders.

However, if a study is restricted to certain region or the population is delimited by a set of well-specified parameters, the manageable size of the population allows the study to consider the entire population as the subjects. In the study of identifying competencies for librarians performing public service functions in public libraries, Mahmoodi (1978) only focused on Minnesota libraries and the study subjects were a group of 242

Minnesota librarians identified by forty-five public library directors as responsible for public service functions. Crowe (1973) surveyed all the students (n=312) who graduated from the Library Science Department at Edinboro State College from 1964 to 1972 to determine their perceptions as to the required on-the-job competencies developed through the current curriculum, and not received through the current curriculum, in the attempt to shed light on curriculum revision for this program. Krentz (1986) conducted a survey study among three groups of educators in public school districts in Wisconsin to

determine and analyze the difference between their perceptions about ideal competencies of full-time district library media director and 690 subjects that met the study

Instrument Design

Questionnaires in survey studies for competencies mostly consist of a list of selected competencies for survey subjects to assess the importance of them on a five- point scale. There are three ways reported in the literature to identify the competencies based on which a questionnaire is created.

Input from an Expert Panel

An expert panel is a good resort to brainstorm for competencies if very few competency studies have been conducted in the investigated field. Chandler (1995) used the results from a previous Delphi panel of law librarianship experts as the basis to create the questionnaire for the survey study among law librarians. Mahmoodi (1978) formed a panel of seven Minnesota public librarians recommended by thirty Minnesota Library Association officers and section and round-table members for their ability to articulate the competencies requisite to public services librarianship and each panelist submitted a list of words and phrases describing knowledge, skills and attitudes expected of public services librarians. Then, a panel meeting was organized to reach consensus on a final composite, categorized list of competencies, based on which the questionnaire was created and sent to the survey subjects.

Results from a Literature Review

Reviewing the existing literature is a reasonable approach to identify

competencies if the literature presents a well-developed pool of competencies to select from in the investigated field. Krentz (1986) created the questionnaire based on a general review of the library literature with a focus on competencies of library media director for his study of competencies of full-time school district media directors. Todaro (1984)

located competencies of children’s librarians in journals, monographs, standards and guidelines, competency lists, task analysis reports, etc. Chaudhry and Yeen (2001) identified the competencies from an extensive literature review for their study of

professional staff of public libraries in Singapore. Buttlar and Mont’s (1996) study of LIS competencies to facilitate curriculum planning was a replicate of their work in 1987 (Buttlar & Mont, 1989), and both identified the competencies from the literature. The old one relied mostly on the competencies identified from the study conducted by Griffiths and King (1984), whereas in the more recent one, a review of the professional literature was conducted to expand and/or modify the list adopted in the previous study.

Official Documents Issued by an Institution

Crowe (1973) used twenty-nine role competencies listed under the general statement of role competencies developed by the LIS program at Edinboro State College as the basis for the survey instrument. In this case, the study goal was to assess the opinions of students who graduated from this particular program regarding competencies they achieved from the curriculum, thus, it made sense to simply use the competency statements developed by the program itself.

In Pfister’s (1982) study, the competencies used in the questionnaire were drawn from a competency list proposed by a Media Specialist Task Force and submitted to Council on Teacher Education of the Florida Department of Education. The objective of this study is to find out which of the proposed competencies were considered essential by actual practitioners so that this competency document became the only source of the questionnaire.

Data Analysis

Different study designs result in different data analyses. One thing in common among most of the studies is the statistical analysis conducted to determine different variables’ relationship with survey responses in addition to the descriptive report of competency ratings.

Demographic variables such as library type, years of work experiences, position, education, etc., were frequently collected in these studies and statistical methods were used to analyze the responses and determine if there was significant difference between ratings on a particular competency from different demographic groups (Krentz, 1986; Chandler, 1995), or ratings on different competencies from the same demographic group (Todaro, 1984). In other cases, researchers were interested in the relationship between different ratings (different points on the Likert scale) on each competency (Crowe, 1973; Chaudhry & Yeen, 2001), or the relationship between responses on non-competency- related demographic questions to supplement competency findings (Buttlar & Mont, 1996).

2.5.4. Summary

The most distinctive feature of Delphi studies, as mentioned earlier, is to reach consensus among panel experts to forecast future events. The justification for using Delphi method in Fiedrich’s (1985) study was quite obvious: the study objective was to forecast most needed competencies for information professionals in the coming decade. However, the Delphi method was slightly modified in implementation in that the first- round questionnaire did not contain open-ended questions as standard Delphi studies

would but directly asked close-ended questions for competency ratings. The panel selection process was rather random given that no well-defined criteria were applied.

In comparison, in another Delphi study reviewed above (Chandler 1995), the Delphi panel was carefully selected and open-ended questions were asked in the first round. However, the purpose of the study was not to reach any consensus and the study stopped at the second round where panelists were asked to rate the competencies

identified from the first round. The same questionnaire from the second round was used in a following survey among law librarians so that responses from both the panelists and librarians can be compared to each other, which was the main objective of the study. Thus, the Delphi study in this context was not fully functioning because very few efforts on providing controlled group feedback to panelists were exerted to reach consensus. In some sense, the first round of this Delphi study was simply to identify competencies that can be used in the questionnaire for the second round and the survey. It was similar to what Mahmoodi (1978) did for public service librarians. The only difference was the way the panel was organized to identify competencies.

In order to benefit from the Delphi method, the purpose of the study has to be reaching consensus among a representative expert panel in terms of future forecasting or item prioritizing, whereas the survey instrument is more generic and suitable for any study on eliciting subjective information relevant to the investigated topic. The topic of this dissertation is to determine essential competencies and effective training techniques for chat reference librarians. Participants of the study are expected to rate the importance of chat reference competencies and training approaches identified from the literature. The

experts, but to seek input regarding chat reference competencies and training from as many librarians as possible. Thus, the survey instrument is considered to be a more appropriate methodological instrument for this study.