Article Note: On Undergraduate Perception and Selection of Information Sources

Citation for the article:

Kim, Kyung-Sun and Sei-Ching Joanna Sin. "Perception and Selection of Information Sources by Undergraduate Students: Effects of Avoidant Style, Confidence, and Personal Control in Problem-Solving." The Journal of Academic Librarianship 33.6 (December 2007): 655-665.

Read it via EBSCO's E-journal service.

This article, in brief, did not tell me anything that I did not know already. Even though the authors provide a good number of tables and charts to go along with their survey results, in the end, much of the advice they offer for instruction librarians are things that are known in the literature and in the field. The authors were investigating how undergraduates make decisions about selecting information sources; they did so by considering the impact that an avoidant style, confidence levels, and personal control in problem-solving have in the decision process. The authors take the time to define these concepts and to lay out their methodology, but in the end, the findings are not terribly new. If nothing else, their findings confirm previous studies, some of which the authors include in their literature review.

A couple of examples of the findings:

• "A particularly noteworthy finding was that Web search engines and Web sites were rated highly in most dimensions except 'accuracy,' 'objectivity' and level of 'organization.' Participants tended to perceive that resources available on the Web were highly accessible and easy to use" (659). This is not ground-breaking. Any IL librarian in an academic setting pretty much knows students see the Web as convenient, accessible, and easy to use.
  
• "If information cannot be retrieved 'successfully' in their initial attempts, individuals with low self-efficacy might experience more uncertainty and stress than those with high self-efficacy. This might, in turn, contribute to less efficient searches and also low level of satisfaction with the search process as suggested in previous studies" (662). This gives some idea of how the students view themselves: how confident are they in their skills? Here I think there is something missing from this study, and that is the notion of competency. Melissa Gross's article, which I noted here, discusses this idea of how accurate is the feeling of being competent. In other words, if you are not competent, but you feel that you are, how would you know? Low-skilled individuals, if they have some confidence, often tend to overestimate their actual skill. I right away recalled that article when I was reading this one. By the way, the Gross piece is not cited in this article, which I would have expected. I would guess Gross's work was not readily available when this study was being done (I am giving them the benefit of the doubt).
  

There are a couple of pieces of advice for instructors, which serve more as reminders:

• I do this pretty much on a regular basis for instruction sessions, especially if dealing with low-skilled or at-risk students: "Especially for those with little confidence, instructors should underscore that confusions and anxieties are commonly experienced during the research process, and that having difficulties in searching is not necessarily an indication of failure. User training can also support such users by helping them develop and practice effective strategies for query formulation and reformulation (such as the use of synonyms, thesaurus of index terms), and for finding and using alternative sources" (662-663).
• "To encourage use of high quality sources, especially among the users with a high avoidant style, IL education could help users become aware of the availability and accessibility of high quality sources. For example, IL programs can highlight the fact that some resources that are not physically available could be delivered fairly quickly through document delivery services; and that librarians are easily accessible through a variety of channels (e.g., phone, e-mail, live chat, instant messaging, and in person)" (663). Ok, the first part of this statement I found a little condescending. To help them become aware of the high quality sources? That is a basic part of our jobs. Do we really need to be told that? As for the part about librarians, I will grant we can still work on advertising the various ways in which we are accessible. However, this is something that is pretty much all over the library sector of the blogosphere.
  

Overall, while this study confirms previous works and a lot of the conventional wisdom, it does not reveal anything new. While the authors claim this is one of the few studies that looks at undergraduates in terms of their perceptions and propensities, the findings seem to repeat knowledge that most experienced librarians already have. At least to me, after reading all about their method and how the study was made, the article fell short.

Article Note: On surveys of faculty attitudes to collaboration

Citation for the article:

Hrycaj, Paul and Michael Russo. "Reflections on Surveys of Faculty Attitudes Toward Collaboration with Librarians." The Journal of Academic Librarianship 33.6 (December 2007): 692-696.

Read via EBSCO's E-journal service.


This short article questions what seems to be the conventional wisdom when it comes to collaboration between librarians and faculty. That wisdom, based on surveys, conveys that many faculty see the collaboration with librarians as desirable or as a good thing. The authors of this article review previous survey studies to find that is not always the case. What the authors found, in essence, is that professors don't always put their money where their mouths are. In other words, they are willing to give lip service to how good the idea of collaborating with librarians to teach information literacy is. However, all that is fine as long as the librarians do it in someone else's classroom (or not at all).

The authors of this article conducted their own survey. They noticed while looking at the results that there was a gap between methods to teach library research used by faculty and what faculty said they would support (692). This led the authors to raise additional questions.

First, the authors dispel the common excuse faculty use that they did not use library instruction because they were not aware library instruction was available. The authors write:

"This explanation, predicated on library ignorance, seems implausible. For instance, Leckie and Fullerton note that efforts were made to inform faculty at the two universities participating in their survey about library instruction services. They say that Table 7 of their study 'demonstrates that a high proportion of faculty never made use of library instructional services, despite the fact that both library systems make efforts to publicize these services'" (693).

I'll go ahead and say it. Very often the faculty do have the information available; they are just choosing to ignore it. And if a campus as a whole pays little attention to the need to promote and teach information literacy as part of the curriculum, the faculty can go on ignoring the library.

Ignoring the issue is certainly safer than simply admitting a lack of interest or an outright opposition to information literacy. It would take an extremely recalcitrant faculty member to actually say he/she opposes information literacy. Given that even accreditation bodies are at least mentioning IL, most faculty will at least be polite enough to feign interest. They can take a passive resistance route of saying they would be interested in information literacy. The authors consider this:

"If respondents to the survey had a negative attitude about collaborating with librarians on instruction but wished to avoid expressing this attitude, while still answering the survey questions truthfully, then exploiting the vagueness of 'interested' would be a good way to do so" (694).

In other words, very often someone saying that they are "interested" is the polite way to ignore you without showing a negative attitude.

The author conclude that the overall optimism of previous surveys is not justified. However, given the pedagogical benefits, they do believe that collaborations should still be pursued. I have to agree, even as I have faced moments when saying that "some faculty need to be educated" is seeing as stirring the hornets (heaven forbid one has something to offer to them was the attitude). It may take IL implementation at the curriculum level (or a major push to avoid accreditation failure) to get better collaboration. In the end, the authors acknowledge that other options are important as well:

"Based on the above considerations, however, the authors also conclude that the efforts of library instruction programs should not be expended solely on faculty/librarian collaboration. Instruction approaches that involve little-to-no-faculty involvement (for example, standalone library instruction credit courses, one-shot library orientation classes, online tutorials, teaching at the reference desk) must still be pursued" (695).

I am a believer in collaboration when possible. Students gain benefit when faculty and librarians, who share a common goal of student success, come together. However, teaching information literacy skills that will enable students to be lifelong learners is too important. If it means then we need to use other methods, then I say let's do it by any means necessary.

As if I did not get enough spam from Facebook

Previously, I wrote about how I was not too convinced with Facebook "Pages." Well, the annoyance is the spam from their many applications, or rather the banal applications that Facebook has let in when they opened their API to any wahoo who can make a zombie application. Fred Stutzman last week posted a post, "Social Network Clutter," that summarizes a lot of what I have been thinking about lately. He is an expert, so he says it a lot better than I do and explains it well also. He is writing about the Newsfeed feature on Facebook. That is when you log in to your account, you get a little news feed telling you what your friends are up to. That sounds nice, except it has become pretty much a spam feed. For one, every time one of your friends adds one of those application toys, it goes on your feed. By the way, you also get e-mails from Facebook when someone does something with an application to get you to log in. These e-mails in essence boil down to spam in your inbox. The e-mail part you have to log-in to Facebook and actually find the place to turn the e-mails off, which I did after some digging. When it comes to opting out, Facebook does not make things easy.

Second, Facebook has started putting ads of their own to the feed as well, which are mixed in with the rest of the feed, making it difficult to read the feed and find anything you might actually be interested in. Not to mention, like for Stutzman, the ads are often irrelevant and out of context. I can understand some advertising. They have to make a living somehow. I can understand that. But when the ads become excessively intrusive and are not even relevant, they become a nuisance. And a nuisance is something you avoid or eliminate.

These days I don't log in to Facebook a whole lot, if at all. When I do, I take a cursory look, and then leave. It's starting to become mostly a spam box, and I can do without that. Personally, I have found that I can reach some people better through my blogging. I am not expecting a large readership by any stretch of the imagination, but I like the idea that the few people who make their way here come with some interest, that the conversations and any relationships that may form will have more meaning than just "my vampire bit you, go bite someone else" or "go to dental school. Find out how." That's on the personal side.

On the professional side, I wanted to believe in using Facebook when a good number of librarians took the plunge and started experimenting with it for outreach. However, at this point, I am thinking the return on investment is very minimal. Sure, a lot of the students are there, but for one, they are not looking for us there anyways. Who is to say that the library may not be a form of spam nuisance to them? Let's just say I have some serious questions which may or not be the ones that certain enthusiastic people want to hear. If it works for some people, more power to them. I am just saying it is not working for me, and I know I am not the only one. In the end, I think Stutzman puts it well, "If Facebook really is in it for the long haul, the Newsfeed should be a space I enjoy, not one I wince at and try to avoid."

Getting the news online

Michael Stephens recently published an "Open Letter to The South Bend Tribune," which is a response to the letter that newspaper sent him when he canceled his print subscription. He provides the paper with some very constructive suggestions. While I am nowhere near as 2.0 or connected as Professor Stephens is, some of the reasons why he canceled are reasons why I don't subscribe to a print newspaper. In my case, I get most of my news online. I supplement by watching a local broadcast in the morning (the fishing report on Friday mornings is a hoot) before I go to work during the week, and then I watch some CNN and MSNBC (Olbermann's Countdown), that is about it. Even when I do watch the news on cable, I often only "half watch" them, since I often have the computer on where I am reading feeds while listening to the news in the background. In many cases, I have found that by the time CNN covers something on TV, I already saw it online someplace (and that someplace is often not cnn.com). You can't compete with the Internet when it comes to getting the most current stuff. Seeing CNN's "Internet Reporter" (or whatever they call it) usually is amusing, since by the time the young lady points out to something, I already pretty much saw it and moved on.

I have experimented here and there with getting the online news. I have a Bloglines account, mostly for blogs. I still use the MyYahoo! portal I've had for a while, and that is where I read the newspapers I do read. These are selection of Texas papers, including the Tyler Morning Telegraph, and national and international ones. My wife likes to read it in print, kind of a ritual thing, but I am gradually converting her to reading it online. In our case, it is not just that the online version is free (well, not really free since we do have to pay for the Internet access to the ISP pirates), but because the delivery of the local paper was dismal. She may be patient, but when you miss morning delivery days on a row, you won't feel very forgiving. This is especially applicable if you work a night shift most of the week, which she does, Sunday is the day you sleep in a bit, and your newspaper is not there. Even I ran for cover when she realized her paper was not there yet again, and she made her way to the phone to give them a piece of her mind. She is not a big internet user, mostly due to time, but I think she is warming up to the looking at the paper online idea.

By the way, the online papers I read I often do base it on whether they make me register or not. There are a few more I would not mind adding, but I am not about to register, and I am not trolling over to BugMeNot everytime I need a password. Hey, get a clue newspapers. Registration is pretty much a nuisance. Get rid of it. In the meantime, I will be happy to read my news elsewhere.

Your adding blogs and rss is great. Definitely keep that up. In some cases, you may want to be a bit more selective in who you add to your blogs. I think this is more applicable to local papers which may have a lower pool of local talent to choose from. Just because they can type does not follow they can write a good blog. Overall, it is clear that print is pretty much headed into the history bin when it comes to newspapers. In my case, I will add that poor service will mean the print will die faster. However, newspapers online can be excellent. I think in local cases, a good blend of reporters and local bloggers can get good local coverage, which is what a local paper should be doing anyways. The national stuff I can get from CNN, or heck, I can even add feeds from Reuters and AP if I want. I don't need the Tyler paper to tell me about the presidential primaries. I need it to tell me what is going on in the town (I am a local librarian; I need to know that stuff). So I expect to get that from my local paper. You get the idea. Anyways, my two cents.

Further reading notes on Kozol's Letters to a young teacher

To see where this started, please see the previous booknote.

When I read books like this, I find myself noting pages or passages that made me nod or stop and think a moment. So, let me make a few reading notes. The first is just something that made me think, and it did remind me of a couple of recalcitrant kids I had back in my time.

• "None of us should make the error of assuming that a child who is hostile to us at the start, or who retreats into a sullenness and silence or sarcastic disregard for everything that's going on around him in the room does not have the will to learn, and plenty of interesting stuff to teach us too, if we are willing to invest the time and inventiveness to penetrate his seemingly implacable belief that grown-ups do not mean him well and that, if he trusts you, we will probably betray or disappoint him" (67).
  

Like me, Kozol has no patience for jargon and the self-important consultants and educrats that spout it. The problem with this, unfortunately, is that teachers often have to embrace this pseudolanguage if they want the higher-ups to even listen. Kozol writes:

• "This kind of jargon, which relies upon the pumping up of any simple notion by tacking on a fancy-sounding prefix or a needless extra syllable, infests the dialogue of public education nowadays like a strange syntactic illness that induces many educators to believe they have to imitate this language if they want to have a place in the discussion" (89).
  

By the way, that male bovine excrement infestation is very alive in higher education as well. You see various examples of it during accreditation time. Overall, educators learn two languages: "conference" talk or "expert" talk, and normal English (97). Basically, we become fluent as needed. I would speculate that this is a form of code-switching. By the way, a lot of librarianship also suffers from this.

Kozol argues that all teachers should express themselves as witnesses:

• "So I come back again and again to the need for teachers to speak out as witnesses to what they see each day before their eyes, whether they do this only in the most restrained and quiet ways at schoolwide gatherings or meetings in the districts where they work or in bolder voices at the larger education conferences and in the education journals and the mainstream media. 'Witnessing' is a familiar term among the clergy of progressive and compassionate denominators. As I've said to you before, I think it ought to be the privilege, and obligation, of our teachers" (193-194).
  

I will add that we librarians ought to be witnessing as well. There are one or two librarian bloggers who fit the bill, but they are few and far between. This is a significant lack in the librarian blogosphere, but I digress. Let me get back to the book.

Kozol also reminds us that education is political. As much as I despise politics, I know that I need to be able to navigate them when the need arises. Kozol writes on this:

• "There are those in Washington and elsewhere who believe that teachers are already 'too political.' I could not more deeply disagree. I think the problem is exactly the reverse. Teachers, in their large numbers, aren't nearly political enough. (I am also not speaking about teacher unions, which are, and ought to be, political, but about the teacher in and of herself, or himself, as an individual)" (206).

I think the above is very applicable to librarians as well. Sure, the big national professional organization for libraries is very political (and we can look over the good and the very bad some other time). But librarians, as individuals, for the most part, are not political enough. Part of it may be the nature of the profession, but I am digressing again.

Finally, Kozol answers when Francesca asks how does one go on in the face of adversity and an opposition determined to eradicate public education along with any idea of a common good. He writes:

• "Whenever I tell myself that it just seems too hard or hopeless to continue trying to keep up the battle to defend the values you and I hold dear and to go out in public, when I have to, and debate those very agile and sometimes sadistically effective people from the right-wing think tanks, which is no fun at all, I think of the indomitable courage of so many older women like Bernice, who face not merely trivial and one-time injuries or disappointments or political reversals, but extremes of physical discomfort from untreated illnesses as well as psychological ordeals that most of us can only empathetically imagine" (224).
  

Talk about putting things in perspective. And this is not always easy. Any good teacher can probably relate to this. Kozol reminds us that we can never give up:

• "This, Francesca, is the ultimate answer to the question that you posed. I don't believe that any of us has the right to pull back from the battlefield because we are feeling 'weary'"(225).
  

I think that keeps me going as well when I feel weary. I draw strength from the small victories. And thus we can maintain hope.