LILA2010: Describing the use of scholarly literature by undergraduate students

They can find it, but they don’t know what to do with it: Describing the use of scholarly literature by undergraduate students
Stephanie Rosenblatt, Cal State, Fullerton

Not just finding information, but using information.
Hurst & Leonard, 2007 “Why are papers so often lacking in solid, factual information from scholarly sources?”

Assumptions based on the assumption that if students can be convinced to use our “great” resources found through the tools of the “modern academic library”. They will then synthesize information, add it to their knowledge base, and learning occurs.
Would instruction sessions change behavior. Change in behavior indicates learning rather than just an affect.

Is library instruction even detrimental to student work? Do we put them off? It depends, I think, on what we are teaching and how we are teaching it.

Students found materials that met her requirements and even they gave information:
What’s the point of a research paper that doesn’t make connections between the research and their thinking?
Defining our idea of “Synthesis”. What does it mean? How do faculty come to understand it? How do students?
AACU Value rubrics mapped to ACRL rubrics.
Her expectations: Integrating, Developing, Emerging.
“Transforming Qualitative Information”

Action research methodology: open dialog, communication between practioners.

We are making false assumptions about what they need or what we need to teach. We cannot stop there. It’s not about finding, it’s about using. Is the lack of synthesis a problem in information literacy or is it a problem in writing: they might not know how construct the model for writing.
Activity and instruction that models the behavior. In our teaching, show how we find the connection and how to make the connection. Look at peer reviewed articles for how the connections are made in the articles.
Other activity ideas: working in small groups, look at scholarly literature, specifically at literature reviews to emphasize how to make the connections. How do we deal with wanting to cover so much so quickly?
How much do we need to teach students about interface?

Great example of thinking more broadly about library services: integration!
Concerns about stepping on faculty’s toes: is the analytic the job of the faculty? How do you affect change without insulting their teaching? Faculty that are complaining about student work are prime for this kind of collaboration.