LibQUAL+® Survey Administration (2012-2018)

I oversaw all aspects of Liberty University’s LibQUAL+® survey administration in 2012, 2015, and 2018. LibQUAL+® is a nationally normed instrument, but there was plenty of work to do on the local level. The 2012 project lasted about 11 months and included phases for planning, administration, analysis, and reporting. This was a large-scale survey, attracting 4,700 valid responses and 2,500 comments.

A colleague and I shared survey findings in about 20 meetings with different groups of library staff. The insights that we gained as an organization fed into a strategic planning process that began just as the reporting phase came to an end. Below is a Gantt chart that I used to manage the first several months of the project.

The 2015 survey attracted smaller, but still quite respectable, numbers of valid responses (n=1,484) and comments (n=849). Significantly, 2015 respondents reported much higher adequacy means (i.e., surpluses vis-à-vis minimum expectations) than in 2012 (0.82 vs. 0.46). This suggests that insights gained from the 2012 survey led to the formulation and execution of effective action plans.

The library achieved superior results in 2015 on another count: the turnaround time required to derive findings from survey data and formulate appropriate action plans. Whereas in 2012 these processes took 209 days, in 2015 they were achieved in 153 days (-27%). In each case, engagement with LibQUAL+® data competed with other priorities, protracting the journey from data to action plans. Efficiency gained in 2015 was directly related to my own learning in 2012.

In 2018 we collected 1,339 valid responses and 592 comments. As in 2015, we aimed to achieve adequacy mean scores of at least 0.35 for all questions that followed the Minimum/Desired/Perceived structure. Across all respondents, we met or exceeded our target for all 22 core items and for 3 of the 5 local items that we selected. Efficient data analysis and communication of findings led to the formulation of four action plans within less than two months of closing the survey.

Want to learn more about survey research and related topics?

Click the buttons below to see relevant entries in my bibliography, SmithFile.