Development and Testing of a Reference Transaction Assessment Instrument

An i~J!Jas designed to assess the reference outcome in terms of patron report of success. It was theorized that patrons were capable of separating reports of success in finding what was wanted from reports of general overall satisfaction, if given a suitably constructed instrument. Utilized in design were Cronbach 's theories on response set and Cuadra's theories on the fail-safe reaction. A survey was conducted. Fifteen academic libraries across the country participated. Their collections ranged from 56,000 to 4 million volumes. A total of 531 transactions with matching patron and librarian forms were analyzed in terms of 35 variables. The reliability of the instrumentwas found to be .81 overall-.89 for the patron form and. 76 for the librarian form. It was also found that patron report of success on factual questions did not differ significantly from results obtained from unobtrusive observation.