Students at Goodwin are researching and writing for class assignments now as the end of the semester is fast approaching. In today's Inside Higher Ed Daily Update, Princeton University Librarian Mary W.George comments on her experiences with undergraduate library projects. You may be surprised by what she says. Here is a quote from that article:
"When professors assign a library project to undergraduates, just what do they expect students to learn from the research part of the experience? What do professors think students are doing to come up with the sources in their papers? If there is a discrepancy between pedagogical intent and actual student research behavior, how do faculty members address it? Does the end of a well-written, well-supported argument justify whatever means a student uses to acquire sources?
These are issues I often fret about, both in private and aloud when I compare notes with other academic librarians. My concern arises not from a general suspicion that students are engaging in what I call WIGWAM research (Wikipedia – Internet – Google – Without Anything More), but from what students themselves have been telling me for decades. It is clear from e-mail, reference encounters, research consultations in my office, and questions that arise in library instruction sessions, that most students simply do not retain the concepts and logic involved in discovering information sources — never mind the principles for evaluating the sources they do turn up. Even students whom I’ve counseled extensively in the past, and whose projects turned out well, seem clueless the very next semester when they face a research assignment in a different course."
Mary W. George is senior reference librarian at Princeton University Library.
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