A holistic approach to understanding undergraduates: Campus engagement, library use and psychological factors

This article reports on the findings of assessment tools designed to measure undergraduate students' academic engagement, psychological factors (self-regulation), factors affecting academic work, and students' evaluation of their academic success. Two assessment tools (Student Academic Engagement and Success Survey and Online Weekly Journal) were developed to explore these relationships. The Student Academic Engagement and Success Survey was distributed online to undergraduate students and the Online Weekly Journal was used to measure student engagement over an 8-week period with a subgroup of the survey participants. The use of the physical and online library emerged as the top two frequently utilized campus resources. Factors that affected students' performance related to their academic work included stress, social media, and socializing with friends. Students who perceived themselves as not meeting their academic success goals may have compensated by utilizing library resources more frequently. The findings highlight the complex dynamics of students' characteristics, academic engagement, library utilization, their ability to manage their behaviors, and various factors shaping their perception of academic success. •Library visits and website use were top activities for all campus engagement.•Students with a GPA of 2.5–2.99 GPA were the least frequent library users.•Students struggled to avoid distractions and maintain concentration.•Stress and social media emerged as top factors affecting academic work.