LibraryRemix

The Info-Fetishist, a blog maintained by Anne-Marie Deitering, a professor at Oregon State University Libraries recently reviewed David Palmer’s 2009 research findings published in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46 (2).  The research focused on student interest (or focused attention) generated during various learning situations or activities.   The entry, titled Motivating students in the one-shot offers an assessment of this research on library-based inquiry skills instruciton.  Deitering notes that Palmer’s research

suggests [that] “multiple experiences of situational interest” can develop into long-term interest.  At best, this suggests that students would need repeated exposure to awesome information literacy teachers to develop a long-term interest in research or inquiry just from IL classes alone.   In fact, Palmer suggests that one reason for the mediocrity he observed in inquiry skills was the fact that students didn’t really have the experience with independent inquiry to know how to talk about what they were doing.

In my own practice, I’ve certainly found that students have too few opportunities to engage in the broad personalized inquiry that is available in a library setting.  Instructors too often provided (or at least point to) all of the informational pieces students will need to research the same conclusions previously discovered (whether by expert or educator).  And while there is an expectation of informational analysis, there is generally an “anti”-expectation of variation in findings.  Is it little wonder that students view library research opportunities as times for “fact gathering” and “answer finding” rather than a time of discovery and scholarship?

Tags: inquiry, multiple literacies, scholarship

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