. © 2016 Carol Perruso, Attribution-NonCommercial (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) CC BY-NC. This longitudinal study at a large public university surveyed students of the 2008 freshmen cohort over four years about their use of websites and library resources for their research papers. The three goals of the study were to track changes in reported research behavior over time, to see if students' reported source choices were associated with librarian instruction and/or if they were associated with instructors' source requirements. The study found that, as students matured, they used library resources more frequently. Librarian instruction and faculty source requirements both were associated with increased use of library resources.cademic librarians have been assessing the impact of instruction for years, but few studies have looked at undergraduate research behaviors longitudinally-and none for a cohort over four years. By surveying a convenience sample of a 2008 class of first-time freshmen each semester for four years, we hoped to develop a better understanding of how undergraduates' choices of sources changed over time, and how those changes might be associated with librarian instruction and requirements by instructors on the types of sources they used.Specifically, this study by five librarians 1 explored our frequent observations that many undergraduates quickly retreat to Google-dominant searching after instruction in the use of scholarly databases, sometimes even during the instruction session. The initial research question was, does Google reliance change over time? Using survey data from 386 first-semester freshmen and more than 75 students in each of the next seven semesters, we found that research behavior does change. Literature ReviewIn her 2009 literature review, MacMillan found that few longitudinal studies have examined undergraduate use of web and library resources for academic research, or the development of student information literacy skills over time, and a recent review of the literature by the author found the same to be true since then.2 Most of the longitudinal studies looked at change over relatively short timespans-one to two years. 3 The author could find none that tracked a cohort of students over four years. In addition to reviewing longitudinal studies, this literature review focuses on undergraduates'

Before COVID-19, digital divide research among college students was scarce, reinforcing the idea that technology access was nearly universal, with few demographic differences. Pandemic-era research found some technical challenges, but most studies were conducted nationally or at research-intensive (R1) universities, indicating a paucity in research among underrepresented populations, notably Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI). This mixed-methods study aimed to assess digital inequities and pandemic-related technological challenges at an HSI, with high percentages of low-income and first-generation students. This study also sought to determine if findings were consistent with national and R1 research. We surveyed a representative sample of 2188 undergraduates and conducted semi-structured interviews with 26 students. Results showed many students had inadequate technology. Just 79% had the optimal combination of smartphone plus laptop or desktop, with first-generation, low-income, Black, and older students significantly less likely to have this combination and often having to share devices within their households. Internet quality significantly affected all coursework-related challenges, as almost half of students with unstable internet reported trouble completing assignments compared to 20% with stable internet. Finally, results suggest the digital divide may be more prevalent at HSIs than previously studied institutions, while also offering insight into how these challenges affect similar universities.

PurposeThis paper aims to report on how a close collaboration between librarian and instructor made it possible for an existing course assignment to organically evolve into an information literacy assessment, overcoming some of the impediments educators confront in assessing student learning. In addition, the paper seeks to discuss how assessment with realistic scenarios requiring actual research helped to highlight deficiencies in skills and critical thinking, a method known as “authentic assessment”. Results from a pilot and the formal assessment are included.Design/methodology/approachA six‐question pre‐ and post‐test “authentic assessment” was piloted with 60 students, then administered to 43 students. Other journalism instructors and librarians reviewed the questions for validity. A detailed scoring rubric was used, with the authors reviewing each other's work for reliability.FindingsOf students completing both tests, 80 percent showed an average improvement of 47 percent, and average scores increased on five of the six questions. The assessment tool, which addresses most learning outcomes for the course, appears to be a useful gauge of information literacy for journalism students.Research limitations/implicationsThe reliability of the instrument needs to be tested. Also, modifying questions between pre‐ and post‐test, to prevent copy‐and‐paste answers, requires care to assure similar levels of difficulty.Originality/valueWhile there are many case studies of collaboration in information‐literacy instruction and of assessment performed by librarians, there are few examples of assessments jointly developed by librarians and course faculty, and fewer still “authentic assessments” using measures requiring real‐world research because of the effort involved. Additionally, the paper finds no examples of what is described as “organic assessment”, wherein an existing course assignment, if developed to demonstrate student learning, was adapted to become an assessment tool.

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Objective: This study compared the recall and precision of MeSH-term versus text-word searching to better understand psychosocial MeSH terms and to provide guidance on whether to include both strategies in an information literacy session or how much time should be spent on teaching each search strategy. Methods: Using the relevant recall method, a total of 3,162 resources were considered and evaluated to form a gold standard set of 1,521 relevant resources. We compared resources discussing psychosocial aspects of children and adolescents living with type 1 diabetes using two search strategies: text-word strategy versus MeSH-term strategy. The frequency of MeSH terms, the MeSH hierarchy, and elements of each search strategy were also examined. Results: Using the 1,521 relevant articles, we found that the text-word search strategy had 54% recall, while the MeSH-term strategy had 75% recall. Also, the precision of the text-word strategy was 34.4%, while the precision of the MeSH-term strategy was 47.7%. Therefore, the MeSH-term search strategy yielded both greater recall and greater precision. The MeSH strategy was also more complicated in design and usage than the text-word strategy. Conclusions: This study demonstrates the effectiveness of text-word and MeSH search strategies on precision and recall. The combination of text-word and MeSH strategies is recommended to achieve the most comprehensive results. These results support the idea that MeSH or a similar controlled vocabulary should be taught to experienced and knowledgeable students and practitioners who require a myriad of resources for their literature searches.