Providing Information Literacy Instruction to Graduate Students

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Providing Information Literacy Instruction to
Graduate Students

• Hannah Gascho Rempel
• Graduate Student Services Coordinator,
• Oregon State University
• OLA/WLA Conference
• April 18, 2008

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Where Were Headed Today

• Who are our graduate students anyway?
• What are their information literacy needs?
• Some ideas for providing instructional services
  (Example OSU Libraries)

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Why Focus on Graduate Students?

• Traditionally underserved
• Future faculty
• Part of our strategic direction
• Personal interest

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Who Are They?
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dsandler Rice University
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Grad Student Facts Figures

• 13.9 of all students enrolled nationally (2001
  U.S. Dept. of Ed., Pontius Harper, 2006)

OUS 2006 Factbook
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Grad Student Facts Figures

• 28 are members of minority groups (U.S.
  citizens) (In Oregon 10.6)
• 13 - African-Americans
• 8 - Hispanic
• 6 - Asian/Pacific Islander
• 1 Native American
• 16 are international students

Council of Graduate Schools, 2007
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Grad Student Facts Figures

• 59 are female (65 at masters-only
  institutions) Oregon 58 F, 42 M

Council of Graduate Schools, 2007 OUS 2006
Factbook
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Grad Student Facts Figures

• Oregon 58 F, 42 M

OUS 2006 Factbook
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Grad Student Facts Figures Areas of Study

• Education (74 female) and business (55 male)
  were the most popular disciplines
• Health sciences is the fastest growing field
• 53 of international students studied either
  engineering or sciences only 16 of U.S.
  students did

Council of Graduate Schools, 2007
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Grad Student Facts Figures

• Grad students are adults

OUS 2006 Factbook
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Grad Student Facts Figures

• 33 average age at dissertation completion
  (Brus, 2006)
• 25 - have at least one minor dependent (U. of
  Iowa study, Brus, 2006)
• Only at the largest doctoral universities did a
  majority (67) attend full-time (CGS, 2007)

leahleaf
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Brus, 2006
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Brus, 2006
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Brus, 2006
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Grad Student Facts Figures Depressing Facts

• 49 of humanities students finish their
  dissertation in 10 years (as opposed to 63.8 of
  life science and 64.4 of engineering students)
• 38 of humanities students finish at least 35K
  in debt vs. 12 of engineering and 18 of life
  science students

Council of Graduate Schools, 2007
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Ph.D. Completion Factors

• 80 - financial support
• 63 - mentoring/advising
• 60 - family support
• 39 - social environment peer support
• 39 - program quality
• 30 - professional and career guidance

Council of Graduate Schools, 2007
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Working with Adult Learners
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Working with Adult Learners

• Adult learners bring their own learning
  preferences and needs
• Expect to be accountable for more self-directed
  learning
• Prefer learning through hands-on experience
• Enjoy learning that addresses a specific problem
  
• Typically have many more demands on their time,
  when compared with traditional-age students, due
  to family and work responsibilities.

(Dewald 1999 Ross-Gordon 2003)
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Graduate Student Info Seeking Behaviors

• Learn from their peers (Brown 2005 Kuruppu and
  Gruber 2006)
• Lack of time impacts willingness to try new
  library tools and techniques (Parrish 1989
  Sadler and Given 2007)
• Primarily use journal articles rather than books
  (Chrzastowski and Joseph 2006)
• Prefer electronic access (Chrzastowski and Joseph
  2006)
• Desire cross-database searching (Maughan 1999)

OSU Libraries
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Graduate Student Needs

• Increase information literacy skills
• Space to study/research/ write/collaborate
• Community to interact with (Community of
  Scholars)

cayce.vanhorn Auburn University Libraries
ARL/CNI Fall Forum 2007 Report
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Why Grad Students Are Often Underserved

• The undergraduate population is so much bigger
• Undergraduate student development arguably
  requires more attention and resources
• The perception that academic programs and
  departments already meet the needs of grad
  students
• Grad students are experienced students know how
  to navigate the higher ed system

Pontius Harper, 2006
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Traditional Barriers

• Assumptions about level of familiarity and
  knowledge
• By librarians
• By faculty
• By students themselves
• Lack of a traditional access point

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Traditional Service Points

• Orientations
• Tool-specific classes
• Research consultations
• Reference Desk

spencerselvidge
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Creating a Graduate Student Services Program
Departmental Shifts
Surveyed Student Needs
Appointed a Coordinator
Looked for the point of greatest impact
Chose an instructional style
Evaluated Workshop
Promoted Workshop
Expanded Options
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Why the Literature Review?

• Survey results
• Our own experiences as grad students (and
  librarians)
• Common across departments
• Specific, required information need
• Great lead in for many IL competencies
• Determining info needed, accessing, evaluating,
  incorporating, using effectively

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Why a Workshop?

• Separate from a specific course
• Broad reach
• Interactive environment
• Realistic post-school setting
• Elements we included
• Pre-registration, confirmation reminders,
  personalized packets, name tags, food and drink,
  seating, conversational tone, group work

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Workshop Promotion

• Find the most effective means for your setting
• Try multiple avenues
• Posters, handouts, emails from subject
  librarians, emails from grad advisors
• Evaluate what actually worked

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What We Cover

• Definition and purpose of the literature review
• Communicating with your advisor
• Comprehensiveness
• Strategies for conducting a literature review
• Learning how to read and recognize patterns in
  the literature
• Effective database searching

• Useful library services (e.g. interlibrary loan)
• Organizing searches and results (e.g., saving
  searches, bibliographic management software)
• Keeping up with the literature (RSS feeds, Table
  of Contents alerts, social bookmarking, search
  alerts)
• Contacts for further help and participant
  evaluation of workshop

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Evaluation

• Pre-Assessment
• Length of time at OSU?
• Masters or Ph.D. student?
• ILL use?
• Summit use?
• What article databases have you used?
• What do you want to learn?

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Pre-Assessment Findings
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Pre-Assessment Findings
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Pre-Assessment Findings
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Pre-Assessment Findings
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Evaluation Post Workshop

• Self-assessment of learning
• Review of how we did
• What they would like to learn in the future

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Post Workshop Findings
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Future areas to explore

• Target specific audiences
• international students, older than average
  students, or distance learners
• Offer classes for a range of skill levels
• Involve faculty
• Increase thesis writing support for graduate
  students (based on requests on student evals)
• Partner with writing center, academic departments
  to explore options
• Make other library workshop offerings available
  to graduate students
• Provide resources for grad students in their role
  as teachers and researchers (not just students)

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Screenshot of Current Workshop Offerings
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Summary

• Consider your audience
• Create programs that meet a need