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Do KU students know how to study?

It seems like an obvious question to ask, but with a 37.2% graduation rate after four years, it's a question worth asking. Learning the resources that the KU libraries and the university has available for students is crucial to student's success at KU. Before we could adequately solve this problem with Study Stops, we had to understand it. 



One area we focused on was library anxiety. This idea comes from a 1986 article by Constance Mellon entitled “Library Anxiety: A Grounded Theory and its Development” This is the belief that students have certain fears about the library and they are overwhelmed by the grandiose scale of many college libraries. This can be a huge barrier in students accessing the resources of the library. The KU libraries do a lot of work to combat this, according to the library website they do instructional lessons for over 1,000 KU classes every year, reaching over 16,000 KU students. But are students still afraid of the libraries?



As you can see on the campus page of our website, the libraries are a great place to study with lots of amenities for students. Free wifi, outlets, and student friendly renovations have all been done to help get students into the libraries more often. 

But what if you just don't like to study at the library? There is nothing set up for the Lawrence community that lists all hours and gives information about places to study.  By clicking on the "Downtown" tab you can visually browse local business and find out where they are located, what their hours are and what type of study atmosphere/amenities they have. 



So we focused on these two areas we split it into: when you want to stay on campus, and when you want to get off campus. This is how our website is categorized. 



Want to learn more? Here are resources on the KU libraries and more off campus options:

Sources for pictures

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