At our first meeting today about the TLT Faculty Fellow digital literacy acquisition project, we discussed the concept of information literacy, and how it embeds within the multimedia creation process.
As our work begins, I'm collecting general works on information literacy to provide a background for the team. In the process, I found a recent report with some interesting findings on undergraduate students and the research process.
The University of Washington Project Information Literacy Progress Report, by Drs. Alison Head and Michael Eisenberg, looks at the challenges undergraduate students face finding information for course assignments and personal needs.
The progress report focuses on the issue of "context"---specifically, how students attain context during the research process, in the following forms:
--Big picture context---Selecting a topic, narrowing down a topic effectively, understanding the overall background and landscape of a research topic.
--Language context--Understanding the terms and vocabulary of a specific subject area. This could also include brainstorming appropriate keywords for use in the research process, and understanding the context of specific keywords (or subject headings) in online databases.
--Situational context---Understanding how information fits within the parameters of the assignment, the research topic, the professor's expectations.
--Information gathering context---The act of finding, evaluating, using and citing research sources for course assignments.
These contexts combine to create the student experience throughout the research process. What's not addressed in the paper (but which could also be identified) are the affective, emotional skills that students need to move successfully between contexts and successfully navigate research for course assignments.
Some interesting findings in the progress report:
The tendency to procrastinate occurred most frequently among students enrolled at research
institutions. (Color me unsurprised by this one.) This was explained as occurring because students had access to such large online collections that they could always find "something to cite."
Students from smaller institutions began their research sooner rather than later, following a more traditional process of gathering sources from ProQuest, etc... and even requesting materials via interlibrary loan. Is this because these students were more likely exposed to course-related library instruction in their smaller setting? This problem alone would make an interesting comparison study between University Park and other Penn State campuses. The report also notes that students in smaller schools viewed faculty (and librarians) as more helpful and accessible.
I love this quote: "Findability was often the most intimidating part of course-related research." Students consistently reported trouble finding what they were looking for, online or physically in the library.
In nearly three quarters of students surveyed, their research began with Wikipedia---particularly for the value in gaining an idea of the big picture surrounding a topic, and for assistance in learning the language and terms of a topic area. One student aptly describes Wikipedia as "A great place to start, and a horrible place to end."
The contexts identified in this report could provide a structure for placing information literacy outcomes within student assignments. To see how our work on this project and others related to digital literacy progress throughout the summer and beyond, feel free to follow the project's wiki page.
As our work begins, I'm collecting general works on information literacy to provide a background for the team. In the process, I found a recent report with some interesting findings on undergraduate students and the research process.
The University of Washington Project Information Literacy Progress Report, by Drs. Alison Head and Michael Eisenberg, looks at the challenges undergraduate students face finding information for course assignments and personal needs.
The progress report focuses on the issue of "context"---specifically, how students attain context during the research process, in the following forms:
--Big picture context---Selecting a topic, narrowing down a topic effectively, understanding the overall background and landscape of a research topic.
--Language context--Understanding the terms and vocabulary of a specific subject area. This could also include brainstorming appropriate keywords for use in the research process, and understanding the context of specific keywords (or subject headings) in online databases.
--Situational context---Understanding how information fits within the parameters of the assignment, the research topic, the professor's expectations.
--Information gathering context---The act of finding, evaluating, using and citing research sources for course assignments.
These contexts combine to create the student experience throughout the research process. What's not addressed in the paper (but which could also be identified) are the affective, emotional skills that students need to move successfully between contexts and successfully navigate research for course assignments.
Some interesting findings in the progress report:
The tendency to procrastinate occurred most frequently among students enrolled at research
institutions. (Color me unsurprised by this one.) This was explained as occurring because students had access to such large online collections that they could always find "something to cite."
Students from smaller institutions began their research sooner rather than later, following a more traditional process of gathering sources from ProQuest, etc... and even requesting materials via interlibrary loan. Is this because these students were more likely exposed to course-related library instruction in their smaller setting? This problem alone would make an interesting comparison study between University Park and other Penn State campuses. The report also notes that students in smaller schools viewed faculty (and librarians) as more helpful and accessible.
I love this quote: "Findability was often the most intimidating part of course-related research." Students consistently reported trouble finding what they were looking for, online or physically in the library.
In nearly three quarters of students surveyed, their research began with Wikipedia---particularly for the value in gaining an idea of the big picture surrounding a topic, and for assistance in learning the language and terms of a topic area. One student aptly describes Wikipedia as "A great place to start, and a horrible place to end."
The contexts identified in this report could provide a structure for placing information literacy outcomes within student assignments. To see how our work on this project and others related to digital literacy progress throughout the summer and beyond, feel free to follow the project's wiki page.
(Publishing this comment submitted via email with Dr. Head's permission---Ellysa)
Hi Ellysa -
Thanks for your write up on your about our Project Information Literacy (PIL) findings on your E-Tech blog, which my Google Alerts just brought to my attention. I'm honored that our Progress Report has been included in your discussions.
I found your blog posting very interesting and well written, especially your discussion of our context typology. I have asked colleagues quite a few times, "What else is missing, here?" and have not received much feedback. You provided one perspective that addresses my question. That is, what is missing from our typology is a context that provides the "affective, emotional skills" for conducting the research process. This, of course, brings to mind the work of Carol Kuhlthau and I am indeed, a big follower/fan and do not dismiss this part of the research process in the least.
However, let me just weight in because, well, I cannot resist ;-) The contexts we have identified are "things" students must go out and obtain, for the most part, from other sources across the information landscape. Therein, we argue, lies the problem/challenge. I would further argue that while the emotional where-with-all for conducting research is very important, it is not a context as we have defined it--emotional skills come from within a person as a reaction often to experiences with obtaining the four contexts. I would suggest, for what it's worth, that this component of the research process (the emotional skill set) is related to confidence levels that increase as each one of our four contexts are satisfied/met.
I hope you find these comments useful. I mean to share them with you in a collegial way and because you have sparked my intellectual interest. From your blog, you seem like a diligent academic, so I write to share my own thoughts, whatever they may be worth! Best of luck to you in your fellowship. Very exciting work.
Stay tuned. This fall, we will issue another PIL Progress Report. This time with quantitative results from a student survey with 2500 responses from undergraduates from six U.S. campuses.
Thank you once again for including the PIL Progress Report in your own work!
--Alison Head
Hi Alison,
Thank you so much for your comments! It means quite a bit to me that you found my blog post (so quickly, no less!) and took the time to share your thoughts. I thought the Progress Report was absolutely fascinating, and I'm looking forward to reading your qualitative report this coming fall.
I'm in the process of completing an article about affective information literacy standards, so your thoughts on affect relative to your identified IL contexts are timely! I agree that affective skills are not a context unto themselves. I suppose what I was thinking was a structure similar to the new AASL Learning Standards, where there are affective dispositions in action related to each key standard. Of course, this is also restructuring your typology of contexts as standards or outcomes. :)
I know the contexts in general will be tremendously helpful to me in explaining information literacy to non-library audiences during my fellowship. We are also beginning a training program for our new instruction librarians here at Penn State, and I will likely reference your latest report and the contexts. I think they will help our librarians understand and better organize their students' needs relative to course-related instruction.