September 2, 2010
Handouts for college research assignments are often poor roadmaps
Note: A short video (2:22 min.) about the research results is available here.
Sometime in the next few weeks, millions of college students will receive assignments for the classic research paper. But a new study shows the majority of instructors’ handouts are long on mechanics and short on explaining what research entails, especially how to find and use sources.
“Many handouts in our sample felt like city road maps with no street names,” said Alison J. Head, a research scientist at the University of Washington Information School. “Handouts were chock-full of formulaic details such as page length and style of citations, but few had specific details about finding, evaluating and ethically using sources,” Head said.
She and Michael B. Eisenberg, dean emeritus and professor in the Information School, studied 191 course-related assignments distributed to undergraduates at 28 college campuses across the U.S. They found that many handouts place far more attention on mechanics than ways to conduct research in today’s data-drenched world.
The handouts seldom requested newer formats, either. “Despite seismic changes in the way information is now created and delivered,” says a report Head co-authored, “few handouts requested other formats such as oral or multimedia presentations.”
Head and Eisenberg are co-directors of Project Information Literacy, an ongoing research study about how college students find information for course work and solve information problems in their everyday lives.
The study also determined:
• Six of every10 handouts recommended searches of library shelves more than research databases, the library catalog, the Web or any other resources.
• Forty-three percent of handouts recommended students use the library’s online research databases but only 14 percent suggested which ones.
• Three-quarters of handouts failed to mention the Internet for research – even though most students inevitably use websites and search engines.
• Only 13 percent of handouts recommended consulting a librarian.
Instructors who had taught between 11 and 20 years provided more written guidance about the library and/or Internet sources than those who had taught five years or less.
Overall, handouts concerning arts and humanities courses were more likely than those in social sciences or engineering to provide direction about resources but only 27 percent of the arts and humanities handouts gave advice about the library, course readings, primary sources or the Internet.
“I can tell you I’ve only had a handful of students who really can do all this stuff without completing research assignments,” said one humanities instructor interviewed during the study.
In follow-up interviews, instructors said that along with handouts, they offer guidance through such things as classroom discussions, ancillary handouts and librarian demonstrations. But they also said getting students to venture beyond the first page of a Google search is an ongoing challenge.
Slightly more than one-third of handouts included grading criteria. Yet in another survey Head and Eisenberg conducted this past spring, they found 96 percent of students considered the grade crucial.
Plagiarism was covered in only 18 percent of handouts – and consequences, such as failing the course, appeared far more often than details about preventive strategies. Regarding plagiarism, Head interviewed John Palfrey, a professor who specializes in cyberlaw and is co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School.
He said, “Plagiarism is a tricky topic for educators to handle with their students; it’s not the core topic of most courses; it’s not fun; and it sounds schoolmarmish to bring it up … there’s a strong need, though.”
Head and Eisenberg recommend that instructors explain the whys behind research, perhaps comparing research to detective work driven by intellectual curiosity.
“Handouts need to peel back the layers so students have more context about what the research process means and entails and why they are doing it in the first place. Then they can practice research from one class to another, as it applies,” Head said.
She and Eisenberg also recommend that research assignments require students to consult diverse research formats, from collaborative wikis and blogs to video, books, scholarly journals and primary sources.
“Using diverse formats hits a pedagogical sweet spot,” Head said. “Students get hands-on practice with the nature and extent of information needed and also get better at processing information in all forms. It’s what today’s graduates need to be lifelong learners.”
For the research report and a brief video about its major findings, go to Project Information Literacy.
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For additional information, contact Head at ajhead1@uw.edu or 707-939-6941.
