The influence of academic library experiences on undergraduates' critical thinking during three years of college

An academic library's quality has traditionally been determined by the size of its collections, expenditures, and operating budget. However, recent calls have suggested improving the evaluation of an academic library's quality by assessing its impact on student outcomes. This study tests a new model of academic library impact that takes into account the relationships between undergraduates' academic library experiences and critical thinking suggested by extant research.; The conceptual framework was derived from four sets of literature: (1) literature on the relationship between undergraduates' library activities and critical thinking, (2) literature on undergraduates' library activities, (3) literature on background characteristics and college experiences that are related to undergraduates' critical thinking, and (4) literature on college impact theories and models.; The two measures of critical thinking were self-reports on the College Student Experiences Questionnaire (CSEQ) and objective scores on the Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) critical thinking test. These instruments were part of data obtained from the National Study of Student Learning (NSSL), a longitudinal, multi-institutional study sponsored by the National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning and Assessment (NCTLA). Only data from the 1,046 undergraduates who participated in all waves of the data collection were included in the secondary analyses.; Results of regression analyses indicated that academic library experiences during the freshman and sophomore years were not related to either subjective or objective estimates of their critical thinking. Freshman and junior year academic library experiences were related to self-reported gains in critical thinking on the CSEQ during the junior year. While there was a relationship between self-reported critical thinking and academic library experiences, the significance levels were low.; In addition to academic library experiences, other variables were related to self-reported critical thinking. Outcomes attributed to peer interactions, writing term papers, active learning and engaged writing activities were directly and indirectly related to self-reported critical thinking. Student-faculty interactions were indirectly related to self-reported critical thinking. Although this study provides evidence of a relationship between academic library experiences and self-reported critical thinking, future research is needed to explore the nature of undergraduates' library use and its relationship with other cognitive educational outcomes.