Library Research Skills Needed by New College Students

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Library Research Skills Needed by New College
Students

• Richard Eissinger
• Southern Utah University

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David T. Conley, College Knowledge

• An ever-increasing proportion of high school
  students in the US today aspire to college.
• Percentage of college students receiving
  bachelors degrees has remained relatively
  constant over the past 25 years.
• It now takes on average 5 years to get a 4-year
  college degree.
• Between 30-60 of students now require remedial
  education on entry to college, depending on the
  type of institution they attend.

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Introduction Background

• CIRP - Cooperative Institutional Research Program
  
• FYE First Year Experience
• Information Literacy
• SCANS - Secretarys Commission on Achieving
  Necessary Skills
• Goals 2000
• AASL Information Power
• ACRL Information Literacy
• ICT - Information Communication Technology
  (ETS)
• High School to College Issues
• Millennial students

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CIRP Freshman Survey

• HS grade inflation 1966-2004
• A- or higher 20 to 48
• C or lower 22 to 5
• HS student frequently felt bored in class
• 1985 29 gt 2004 43
• Studying 6 hours per week
• 1987 47 gt 2004 34
• Faculty perspectives on student preparedness
• 45 agree that most students they teach lack the
  basic skills for college level work

http//www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/freshman.html
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CIRP Freshman Survey
http//www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/freshman.html
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First Year Experience

• Increased freshman retention
• National average 63-70
• SUU before FYE 51 - after FYE 59
• 58.9 report increased persistence to sophomore
  year
• 58.4 report improved student connections with
  peers
• 51.2 report increased use of campus services
• 50.6 report increased student satisfaction with
  the institution
• 45.0 report increased out-of-class
  faculty/student interaction
• 41.6 report increased level of student
  participation in student activities
• 36.0 report increased academic abilities
• 31.1 report increased student satisfaction with
  faculty
• 26.7 report improved grade-point-averages
• 18.3 report increased persistence to graduation

http//www.sc.edu/fye/index.html
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Information Literacy

• 1991 SCANS, Secretarys Commission on Achieving
  Necessary Skills, US Dept. Labor
• 1996 - Goals 2000, Dept. Education
• 1998 - Information Power, ALA
• 2000 - Information Literacy Competency Standards
  for Higher Education, ACRL
• 2003 - ICT Information Communication
  Technology, ETS

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High School to College Transition

• The best predictors of whether a student will
  graduate or not are academic preparation and
  motivation.
• High schools focus on making students
  college-eligible to meet admissions
  requirements. They may or may not be
  college-ready.
• Many students enter college with poor time
  management and study skills.

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High School and College Differences

• Change from a teacher-directed to a
  student-directed environment.
• High school teachers often spend considerable
  time attempting to motivate students to learn.
• Experience culture shock when they enter learning
  environments that different from their past
  experiences.

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Instructor Expectations

• Do not always collect homework fewer tests
• Professors are trained experts in their field
  not in teaching methods
• Extra credit usually not available
• Students are expected to synthesize concepts
  between textbooks, class readings, and the real
  world
• College classes larger, longer, don't meet every
  day
• More writing required in college
• More academic freedom
• High school is more textbook focused college
  more lecture focused
• In high school the parent is held responsible in
  college student is held responsible for actions
  (FERPA)
• In high school the school creates social,
  cultural activities to enhance students
  education in HS in college student must seek out
  social interactions
• High school students can remain in school despite
  poor academic performance can be dropped in
  college.

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Beloit College Mindset List

• Gas has always been unleaded.
• An automatic is a weapon, not a transmission.
• Stores have always had scanners at the checkout.
• They don't remember when "cut and paste" involved
  scissors.
• Libraries have always been the best centers for
  computer technology and access to good software.
• Digital cameras have always existed.
• Photographs have always been processed in an hour
  or less.
• Money put in their savings account the year they
  were born earned almost 7 interest.

http//www.beloit.edu/pubaff/mindset
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New Students The Millennials

• Echo boomers, net generation, gamers
• Most ethnically diverse generation in US history
• Tend to be visual learners, get bored quickly
  (lectures)
• Hold a positive view of technology
• Its been suggested that these students are often
  overconfident because they equate their
  technology savvy with information literacy.
• OCLC white paper on information habits of college
  students found that 80 of undergrads use web
  search engines for all or most assignments, while
  only half used the librarys subscription-based
  resources.

http//www.oclc.org/research/announcements/2002-
06-24.htm
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Millennial Searching Habits

• Many high school teachers endorse the internet as
  a good research resource.
• Tend to find information in a chaotic fashion,
  focusing on speed and convenience.
• Show little evidence of coherent search
  strategies.
• Easily accessible information enables students to
  stop at the first answer they find.
• They expect the research process to be easy
  like Google.
• Email still a fixture in teens lives, but IM is
  preferred.
• Size of wired population surges at the 7th grade
  mark
• They may be whizzes on communication devices, but
  their communication skills both in writing and
  in person have a long way to go.

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The SUU Experience
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LM1010 Information Literacy

• 1 credit - general education information literacy
  requirement
• Taught by library faculty (9)
• Designed maintained by faculty
• Offered completely online using WebCT
• Exposure to online learning

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LM1010 Information Literacy

• Skills Survey
• Test-Out Exam
• Four chapters/quizzes/assignments
• Choose a topic
• Find information
• Evaluate information
• Cite information
• Final Exam

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LM1010 Information Literacy
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LM1010 Information Literacy
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Skills Survey gt Test-Out Exam
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Skills gt Test-Out gt Final
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Boolean searching by class
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Scholarly vs popular by class
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Learning outcomes
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LM1010 Evaluation
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Necessary Library Research Skills
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Library anxiety

• New college students indicate that they are not
  comfortable with library research
• Size of library is intimidating
• Lack of knowledge about terminology and locating
  items
• Dont know how or where to begin
• Different buildings
• Dewey vs. LC numbers are subjects and a
  classification system

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Library Phobias
Research Strategy Overcoming Library Phobias.
BYU. 1993.
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What you can do

• Visit local university libraries and develop a
  relationship with a local university librarian
• Teach searching a university OPAC
• Online chat
• Libraries are frequently the only place to go
  after 5 pm to get answers
• Ask a librarian!

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Searching skills

• Dewey decimal vs LC
• Boolean searching
• Look for the help page
• Databases operate in similar ways
• Reading an index
• Using a table of contents or index (chapters in
  an OPAC)

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Searching skills Boolean, etc.

• Boolean terms and, or, not
• Truncation and wildcards
• OPAC vs online resources understanding
  difference between electronic record and full
  text
• Selecting an index where to begin
• Subject headings vs keywords
• subject headings usable across databases
• especially good in subject indexes

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Searching skills - keywords

• Your results are only as good as the keywords you
  use
• Brainstorm using a thesaurus (Tools in Word)
• Note how often their keywords show after
  searching (Edit/Find in Word)
• Use multiple keywords
• Correct spelling is important

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Locating sources

• Abstracts vs citation
• colleges have abstract and citation databases
  available
• some try to use abstracts as the full text
• dont understand what a citation is
• Microfilm, microfiche colleges have variety of
  formats available
• Full text
• Bound periodicals
• Interlibrary loan usually within school
  districts colleges have ILL

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Scholarly sources

• Understand academic journals vs. magazines
• Peer-reviewed, refereed, scholarly, academic
• Scholarly research
• Start them in high school to understand these
  distinctions (e.g., in Utah MasterFILE Premier is
  used as the high school default database)
• Google

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Evaluating sources

• MLA
• authority, accuracy/verifiability, currency
• Source / authority
• Purpose
• Content / coverage
• Currency
• Bias
• Why evaluate?
• Students will need to defend their information
  choices to their professors

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Citing sources

• Style guides
• dont know about the different styles and formats
  by discipline
• Plagiarism
• Most students have not been taught the skills of
  paraphrasing, quoting and summarizing
• Citation machines
• ProQuest, Questia
• Citation Machine, EasyBib, NoodleTools, RapidCite

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Notetaking

• Systematic notetaking leads to good research
• RefWorks, EndNote, Reference Manager
• Cornell method, outlining, graphic organizers
• Microsoft OneNote

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Microsoft OneNote
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Conclusions

• Discuss how their skills are transferable
• Prepare them for the size of college libraries
• Help your students see librarians are their best
  resource

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