Chapter 3. Methodology
3.3 Research design
3.3.1 Research procedure
The researcher followed the procedures, as shown in Fig. 5, to collect data and analyze data for this study.
Revised the FLCCQ with 47 question items
Method of data collection Method of data analysis Reviewed relevant literature
Conducted semi-structured interviews with 2 librarians and 2 faculty members in Taiwan
Extracted 24 factors and designed the first draft of questionnaire with 40 question items in the part of FLCCQ based on the 24 factors
Content analysis
Invited 5 experts to review the questionnaire
and provide comments and suggestions Expert analysis
Conducted a pilot study for 28 faculty
members and 35 librarians in Taiwan Factor analysis Item analysis
Conducted an online survey and collected 480 valid responses
Remained 38 question items in the final version of the FLCCQ
Descriptive statistics Factor analysis t-test and ANOVA Regression analysis Analyzed results and made conclusions
Figure 5. Research procedure flow chart
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3.3.2 Participants
From the perspective of a social-cultural world, collaboration is a social endeavor.
Collaborative partners who hold diverse views are encouraged, and their individual cultural differences are seen as a way of expanding the conceptual development of all group members (Montiel-Overall, 2005). This indicates that if we intend to explore the current development of faculty-librarian collaborations and analyze faculty-librarian collaborative cultures in higher education in Southeast Asia, we should broadly investigate the individual perceptions of librarians and faculty members in the regions of Southeast Asia.
However, there are many countries and regions in Southeast Asia. It is impossible to invite all of the faculty members and librarians in Southeast Asia to participate in this study.
Therefore, this study selects Taiwan and three other countries and regions in Asia, including Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand as the targets of investigation. One of the reasons for this choice is because the development of library and information studies in these three Southeast Asian regions is quite advanced. The other is because these three regions are also the active members in Asian Library and Information Research Group (ALIRG).
The ALIRG (previously known as Taiwan-Singapore-Thailand Library and Information Science Research Group), is a collaborative effort among several Library and Information Science researchers from Taiwan (National Taiwan Normal University), Singapore (Nanyang Technological University), Thailand (Khon kaen University and Mahasarakham University), Malaysia, Philippines, India, and other Southeast Asian countries. The ALIRG was organized and established in 2008. The purpose of the Workshop series is to promote collaboration among Library and Information Science researchers, educators, and professionals. A PhD symposium is also included in the Workshop to promote networking among PhD students. Basically, all group members meet
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once a year to coordinate group activities and foster possible collaborative research projects.
The researcher firstly proposed this research project in the 6th ALIRG Workshop in Malaysia in 2014. Fortunately, several professors and librarians from Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand in the ALIRG were also interested in this research topic and willing to collect data for this study. Thus, the target population of this study included faculty members and librarians in universities in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, and Taiwan.
3.3.3 Method
In this study, a questionnaire survey was administered to collect data. First, two draft versions of the questionnaire for librarians and faculty were respectively developed based on a review of the relevant literature and one-on-one interviews with two senior librarians and two faculty members who have had strong experiences with promoting faculty-librarian collaboration in these two universities of Taiwan in February and March, 2015. One is a small to medium sized private university of science and technology in Northern Taiwan.
The other is a large-sized private university in the central area of Taiwan. Each interview took about 30 to 40 minutes. The scripts of the four interviews are attached as Appendix 1.
A semi-structured interview method was adopted in this study. In order to allow ideas to be brought up during the interview, the researcher prepared a couple of draft questions as the framework of themes to guide the interviewees to reply.
The interview questions for the librarians are: (1) Why would you like to collaborate with faculty members? (2) What kinds of projects do you usually adopt to collaborate with faculty members? (3) How dod you approach faculty members to work with you for the
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collaborative projects? (4) How do you establish and keep the collaborative relationships with faculty members? (5) What are the success factors for conducting the faculty-librarian collaborations? (6) What difficulties do you often encounter in conducting faculty-librarian collaborative projects? On the other hand, the interview questions for the faculty members are: (1) Why would you like to collaborate with librarians? (2) How do you build the collaborative relationships with librarians? (3) What are the appropriate methods to keep the collaborative relationships between faculty members and librarians? (4) What kinds of projects have you collaborated with librarians before? (5) What are the success factors for conducting the faculty-librarian collaborations? (6) What difficulties do often you encounter in conducting faculty-librarian collaborative projects?
Next, the researcher invited two senior professional librarians and three scholars in librarianship in Taiwan to respond to the questionnaires for measuring content validity in May and June of 2015. The questionnaires were revised and edited in accordance with their opinions and comments. A cover letter for those professional librarians and scholars, and detailed descriptions for responding to the questionnaires are attached as Appendix 2.
Finally, a pilot study was conducted in September and October, 2015. Twenty-eight librarians and 35 faculty members were asked to pretest the questionnaires at several Taiwan‘s universities. The researcher used item analysis and factor analysis techniques for measuring the validity of the questionnaire. The final versions of the questionnaires were developed based on the results of the pretest.
3.3.4 Research instrument
Two survey questionnaires entitled ―Faculty-librarian Collaboration Survey-- Librarian‖
and“Faculty-librarian Collaboration Survey-- Faculty‖ were designed and developed by
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the researcher to collect data. Since the survey questionnaires should be distributed to different countries and areas in Asian region, each survey questionnaire has two language versions, Chinese and English.
Basically, the questionnaire comprises three parts. This first part is demographic and background information, which includes seven question items designed to understand the personal background characteristics of the respondents. All sentence statements are the same from Q1 to Q6 for both ―Faculty-librarian Collaboration Survey-- Librarian‖ and
―Faculty-librarian Collaboration Survey-- Faculty.‖ There is a little difference on the Q7 in this part. For the librarian‘s questionnaire, the Q7 is with ―Which disciplinary background‘s faculty members do you collaborate most frequently?‖ For the faculty‘s questionnaire, the Q7 is ―Which is your disciplinary background?‖
The second part is ―Faculty-librarian Collaborative Culture Questionnaire (FLCCQ).‖
It is designed in accordance with the instructions and guidelines for developing a scale in the book ―Scale Development: Theory and Application‖ (DeVellis, 2012). FLCCQ is designed as a five-point Likert-type scale which is used with 5=strongly agree, 4=agree, 3=neutral, 2=disagree, and 1=strongly disagree to measure the levels of collaborative culture valued by librarians and faculty members. The first draft version of the FLCCQ is comprised of 40 question items (see Att. 2). These items are developed on the basis of the conceptual structure of faculty-librarian collaborative culture and designed according to the seven dimensions and 24 factors (see Fig. 4) that are summarized and extracted from a review of the related literature and the one-on-one interviews. The second version of the FLCCQ with 47 questions was revised and edited based on the opinions and comments of two senior professional librarians and three scholars in librarianship in Taiwan. The final version of the questionnaire remained 38 items of questions due to the results of the pre-test
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study.
The third part is composed of five question items to explore the experiences and perceptions of librarians and faculty members regarding current developments of faculty-librarian collaboration, such as reasons for developing the collaborations, and methods for developing collaborative relationships, and models for implementing collaborative projects, and success factors and difficulties for conducting collaborative projects between librarians and faculty members. It is also designed as a five-point Likert-type format. An open-ended question is designed at the end of the third part to ask the respondents to talk about their personal experience in some faculty-librarian collaborative projects.
The final four versions of the questionnaire were utilized to collect data for this study as attached in Appendix 3, 4, 5, and 6. Appendix 3 is entitled ―大學教師和館員協作調 查—館員問卷.‖ Appendix 4 is entitled ―大學教師和館員協作調查—教師問卷.‖
Appendix 5 is entitled ―Faculty-librarian Collaboration Survey—Librarian.‖ Appendix 6 is entitled ―Faculty-librarian Collaboration Survey—Faculty.‖
3.3.5 Validity and reliability
The questionnaire was revised based on the opinions and comments of a number of senior librarians and scholars in the field of library and information sciences. In addition, the full questionnaire was piloted by 28 librarians and 35 faculty members from several universities in Taiwan, including National Taiwan Normal University, Feng Chia University, and the Jinwen University of Science and Technology in September, 2015. The questions were perceived to be readable and understandable to all 63 pilot pre-test members, which showed that the questionnaire had acceptable content validity.
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Factor analysis was used to assess the construct validity of the instruments. According to the pre-test results, as shown in Table 6 and Table 7, three question items (Q32. I believe that the faculty-librarian collaborations can improve the overall performance of the institution. 我認為教師和館員協作能提升學校的整體績效; Q42. Our library is located in a convenient place on campus. 本校圖書館座落在校園內一個方便到達的地點; Q43.
Our library provides suitable spaces and facilities for faculty members and librarians to implement the collaborative projects. 本校圖書館能提供適合教師和館員協作的空間及 設備) in the second part of the questionnaire (FLCCQ) were removed due to the low Critical Ratio (<0.3) by item analysis. In addition, six question items (Q2. I can maintain a good communication and interactive relationship with faculty members/librarians. 我能與 教師/館員保持良好的溝通與互動關係; Q20. I‘d like to contribute my ideas and skills to a faculty-librarian collaborative project. 我會為教師和館員協作專案提供想法及技術;
Q22. I feel satisfied with the experience of collaborating with faculty members/librarians.
我對跟教師/館員協作的經驗感到滿意; Q23. I often encourage my colleagues to take part in the faculty-librarian collaborative projects. 我通常會主動規劃教師和館員的協作專案;
Q28. I believe that the faculty-librarian collaborations can help faculty members/librarians to improve their research performance. 我認為教師和館員協作能幫助教師增進其研究 績 效 ; Q47. There have already been several successful cases of faculty-librarian collaboration in my institution. 本 校 已 有 教 師 和 館 員 協 作 的 成 功 實 例 ) were also removed due to the low factor loadings (<0.5) by principal component analysis and varimax rotation technique. Consequently, the final version of the FLCCQ consists of 38 question items. Finally, the reliability of the second part of the questionnaire (FLCCQ) had a Cronbach‘s alpha of 0.943. In addition, the reliability of Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, and Q5 for the third part of the questionnaire had a Cronbach‘s alpha of 0.870, 0.885, 0.890, 0.938, and 0.906, respectively. This indicates a significant high level of internal consistency for the full
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questionnaire. On the other hand, for the third part of the questionnaire, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value was 0.675. In addition, the reliability of Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, and Q5 were 0.783, 0.858, 0.815, 0.850, and 0.844 respectively. Speaking of the reliability of the instrument, in general, in the social and behavioral sciences, a good measure should have a Cronbach‘s alpha of at least 0.6 or 0.7 and preferably closer to 0.9 (Aron et al., 2005, p.383). Therefore, these statistics indicated that the data were appropriate for factor analysis and construct validity for the full questionnaire reached an acceptable level.
Finally, based on the response result of the 480 faculty members and librarians, a 38-item FLCCQ with seven components was extracted and identified, as shown in Table 8.
The KMO measure of sampling adequacy was 0.914, while the chi-square of Bartlett's test for sphericity was 11634.505 (p < .001). In addition, the reliability of the FLCCQ had a Cronbach‘s alpha of 0.941. That indicated a significant high level of internal consistency for the FLCCQ. Based on the aforementioned results of statistical analysis, the data were shown to be appropriate for factor analysis, and construct validity for the FLCCQ reached an acceptable level.
Table 6
Pre-test results of critical ratio
Questions of the FLCCQ Critical Ratio
Extreme test
Remaining Y/N 1. I often keep in touch with
librarians/faculty members. 0.382 -3.955** Y
2. I can maintain a good communication and interactive relationship with librarians/faculty members.
0.539 -4.097** Y
3. I believe that liaison librarians can strengthen the collaborative relationship between faculty members and librarians.
0.533 -3.925** Y
4. I respect for and listen to librarian‘s/faculty 0.459 -2.152** Y
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Questions of the FLCCQ Critical Ratio
Extreme test
Remaining Y/N member‘s opinions and suggestions
5. I‘d like to actively communicate and discuss with librarians/faculty members for promoting a collaborative project.
0.528 -2.713** Y
6. I‘ve attended the meetings or seminars that were hosted by the library/ the academic departments.
0.309 -2.700** Y
7. I‘ve joined in the club activities of
teaching and administrative staff. 0.416 -3.501** Y
8. I understand the culture of
librarian/faculty members, such as traits, concerns, and attitudes, etc.
0.385 -3.914** Y
9. I understand the job characteristics of
librarian/faculty members. 0.555 -4.568** Y
10. I believe that working with
librarians/faculty members can inspire my creativity and thoughts.
0.477 -2.384* Y
11. I believe that it is mutual beneficial for both faculty members and librarians to collaborate with each other.
0.620 -2.383* Y
12. I always treat librarians/faculty members
with respect. 0.528 -3.229** Y
13. I always trust librarians/faculty members. 0.582 -2.369* Y 14. My ideas are usually valued by
librarians/faculty members. 0.662 -4.867** Y
15. I enjoy working with librarians/faculty
members. 0.614 -3.625** Y
16. I‘d like to actively create opportunities to
collaborate with librarians/faculty members. 0.540 -3.162** Y 17. I treasure every opportunity to collaborate
with librarians/faculty members. 0.742 -4.421** Y
18. I‘d like to actively plan a faculty-librarian
collaborative project. 0.637 -4.643** Y
19. I‘d like to contribute my time and energy
to a faculty-librarian collaborative project. 0.669 -3.823** Y
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Questions of the FLCCQ Critical Ratio
Extreme test
Remaining Y/N 20. I‘d like to contribute my ideas and skills
to a faculty-librarian collaborative project. 0.606 -3.194** Y 21. I often participate in the faculty-librarian
collaborative projects. 0.648 -5.849** Y
22. I feel satisfied with the experience of
collaborating with librarians/faculty members. 0.745 -5.040** Y 23. I often encourage my colleagues to take
part in the faculty-librarian collaborative projects.
0.614 -3.929** Y
24. I‘d like to collaborate with
librarians/faculty members for accomplishing a common goal.
0.584 -2.672** Y
25. Faculty members and librarians should clarify on each other‘s duties when they are implementing a collaborative project together.
0.465 -3.180** Y
26. Faculty members and librarians should share a common responsibility when they are implementing a collaborative project together.
0.473 -3.881** Y
27. I believe that the faculty-librarian collaborations can help faculty members to improve their teaching performance.
0.711 -3.254** Y
28. I believe that the faculty-librarian collaborations can help faculty members to improve their research performance.
0.532 -2.240* Y
29. I believe that the faculty-librarian collaborations can help students to improve their learning achievement.
0.697 -3.328** Y
30. I believe that the faculty-librarian collaborations can help librarians to improve their job performance.
0.442 -2.899** Y
31. I believe that the faculty-librarian collaborations can improve the service performance of the library.
0.504 -4.572** Y
32. I believe that the faculty-librarian
collaborations can improve the overall 0.270 -2.416* N
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Questions of the FLCCQ Critical Ratio
Extreme test
Remaining Y/N performance of the institution.
33. My leader always support me to seek an opportunity to collaborate with
librarians/faculty members.
0.522 -3.058** Y
34. My leader urges me to implement a
faculty-librarian collaborative project. 0.606 -3.746** Y 35. My leader would like to propose practical
suggestions for the faculty-librarian collaborative projects.
0.514 -2.735** Y
36. My leader would like to praise me for my good performance on the faculty-librarian collaborative projects with librarians.
0.485 -2.388* Y
37. Relevant policies or regulations for encouraging the implementation of faculty-librarian collaboration have been released in my institution.
0.428 -3.530** Y
38. Incentive and reward regulations have been released to encourage collaboration between employees in my institution.
0.343 -3.742** Y
39. The achievements of the faculty-librarian collaboration are usually documented in my institution.
0.486 -5.194** Y
40. Equal opportunity for both faculty members and librarians to present their ideas and
opinions is offered in my institution.
0.591 -5.514** Y
41. Equal opportunity for both faculty members and librarians involved in decision making is offered in my institution.
0.586 -4.973** Y
42. Our library is located in a convenient
place on campus. 0.214 -2.760** N
43. Our library provides suitable spaces and facilities for faculty members and librarians to implement the collaborative projects.
0.277 -3.874** N
44. A variety of formal or informal events are
often held to give employees opportunities to 0.387 -4.422** Y
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Questions of the FLCCQ Critical Ratio
Extreme test
Remaining Y/N collaborate with each other in my institution.
45. Inter-departmental collaboration is
supported in my institution. 0.503 -3.550** Y
46. All types of collaboration between
employees are encouraged in my institution. 0.532 -3.843** Y 47. There have already been several
successful cases of faculty-librarian collaboration in my institution.
0.586 -4.588** Y
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Table 7
Pre-test results of principal component analysis for the FLCCQ with 47 items
Items of the FLCCQ Component
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
VAR211 0.816
VAR210 0.793
VAR213 0.781
VAR215 0.652
VAR204 0.651
VAR212 0.639
VAR217 0.560
VAR235 0.921
VAR236 0.881
VAR234 0.751
VAR233 0.729
VAR218 0.671
VAR224 0.500
VAR223 0.490
VAR238 0.895
VAR240 0.847
VAR239 0.810
VAR241 0.802
VAR237 0.716
VAR247 0.497
VAR222 0.432
VAR201 0.745
VAR208 0.710
VAR221 0.687
VAR209 0.663
VAR216 0.572
VAR214 0.528
VAR220 0.496
VAR230 0.697
VAR227 0.608
VAR229 0.604
VAR225 0.604
VAR219 0.555
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Items of the FLCCQ Component
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
VAR216 0.551
VAR245 0.847
VAR246 0.818
VAR244 0.726
VAR228 0.477
VAR207 0.620
VAR203 0.577
VAR231 0.555
VAR206 0.532
VAR205 0.520
VAR202 0.381
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO)=0.609 Bartlett‘s test of sphericity=2879.587
df=1081 sig.=0.00
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Table 8
Final testing results of principal component analysis for the FLCCQ with 38 items
Items of the FLCCQ Component
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
VAR235 0.839
VAR234 0.838
VAR236 0.768
VAR238 0.739
VAR233 0.657
VAR232 0.649
VAR231 0.624
VAR237 0.624
VAR224 0.760
VAR225 0.760
VAR223 0.756
VAR222 0.752
VAR221 0.591
VAR226 0.589
VAR217 0.759
VAR215 0.733
VAR218 0.670
VAR220 0.643
VAR216 0.588
VAR219 0.553
VAR228 0.844
VAR229 0.789
VAR230 0.771
VAR227 0.666
VAR207 0.749
VAR208 0.716
VAR205 0.638
VAR201 0.595
VAR206 0.508
VAR214 0.454
VAR209 0.408
VAR211 0.799
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Items of the FLCCQ Component
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
VAR212 0.763
VAR210 0.477
VAR203 0.445
VAR202 0.800
VAR204 0.717
VAR213 0.597
Rotation sums of squared
loading 12.844 23.678 33.997 43.337 52.592 59.217 65.358 Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO)=0.914
Bartlett‘s test of sphericity=11634.505 df=703
sig.=0.00
3.3.6 Sample and data collection
The population for this study included faculty members and librarians at colleges and universities in several Asian areas, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, and Taiwan.
The researcher used an online survey tool, SurveyMonkey1, to create the online questionnaires for collecting data via the Internet in this study. The final four versions of the online questionnaires were developed in early November, 2015. The researcher asked scholars, professors, publishers, and librarians in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, and Taiwan for help distributing the questionnaires from December, 2015 to May, 2016. In total, 612 respondents answered the online questionnaire. However, 132 responses were highly incomplete. This resulted in 480 valid responses for an overall response rate of 78.43% for this study.
1 SurveyMonkey is an online survey development cloud-based software as a service company.
SurveyMonkey provides free, customizable surveys, as well as a suite of paid back-end programs that include data analysis, sample selection, bias elimination, and data representation tools (Wekipedia).
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3.3.7 Data Analysis
The quantitative analysis of the questionnaire was conducted by using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 23 and applying by the following statistical
The quantitative analysis of the questionnaire was conducted by using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 23 and applying by the following statistical