Engaging Conversation: Evaluating the Contribution of Library Instruction to the Quality of Student Research

Abstract

The authors would like to thank Elizabeth Malloy, graduate statistics consultant, for assisting them with their statistical analysis. The study discussed in this article compared research papers before and after implementation of an inquiry-based library instruction program to assess the program's effectiveness and consider its future development. The new program appears to have made a small difference in the types of materials students chose and how they found them. Little change was seen in how students used their sources. The evaluation has fostered increased collaboration between the library and the English department , and suggests that the programs can be further improved by providing more training for instructors and placing greater emphasis on the rhetorical approach to research. his study was designed to examine the impact of a new library instruction program on the research processes of students in a first-year writing course. Three years after replacing a tool-based library instruction program with one based on inquiry, the authors ask what difference the new program makes and how the next steps can be designed to help students develop information literacy. In 1998, the library instruction program for first-year students at the University of New Mexico consisted of a series of workshops designed to teach users how to use research tools such as the online catalog, the most-used online indexes, and the Web. The program was a remnant of the early days of publicly available information technology when many students , staff, and faculty, familiar with the card catalog and printed indexes, were eager to learn how to use the new electronic versions of these tools. However, interest ebbed and these tool-based workshops were sparsely attended. Students who came to the university already familiar with computers assumed they could figure out how to work the systems on their own. Except where faculty required attendance, the library's certificate of completion had little appeal. And because more students used the Internet to do research before they came to the university, they saw little need for the tools the library could offer. These students came to campus highly computer literate, not realizing they were information illiterate. Presidential Committee on Information Literacy issued a report explaining the importance of information literacy to democracy in an information age. 1 The report defined information-literate people as "those who have learned how to learn. [T]hey know how knowledge is organized , how to find information, and how to use information in such a way that others can learn from them." Librarians began to reduce emphasis on research tools and focus more on research processes and critical thinking, eventually publishing the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education in Janu-ary of 2000. 2 It was in this context, with the availability of information resources outpac-ing the students' ability to sort and evaluate them, that the library approached the English department with a ...

Measuring Association between Library Instruction and Graduation GPA

“…10 Emmons and Martin attempted to assess beyond the bibliography, by using a rubric to determine if students were able to make use of the information they found in the context of supporting arguments and constructing knowledge in their papers. 11 They found that library instruction had some positive effects on information seeking as evidenced in bibliographies, but students were rarely able to evaluate, analyze, or synthesize effectively in their writing. Dogden et al found no evidence that library instruction had a positive impact on the grades of a sociology assignment.…”

Assessing the Enduring Impact of Library Instruction Programs

“…The students' papers were studied meticulously, but it was found that the library program made a small difference in the types of materials students chose and how they found them. 10 Besides the instrument employed in the study, librarians at HKUST were also interested in the timing of the survey so as to measure the enduring effect of its instruction program. Orme conducted the assessment one semester behind the library instruction.…”

Assessing the Value of Course-Embedded Information Literacy on Student Learning and Achievement

“…Student Learning-Final Papers While faculty observations provided a professional practitioner perspective on student learning and student reflections gave valuable insight into student thinking about the research process, papers provided direct evidence of what students were able to do (see figures [3][4][5][6]. In the area of source suitability, 45.0 percent of TRAIL students performed at the Advanced level, with another 27.5 percent performing at the Developing level.…”