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Welcome to Lesson 1!
Welcome to Lesson 1!
Before you get started, note that this lesson is pretty short and consists of just one page. It'll probably take you about 10 to 20 minutes to read through this lesson, but how long it'll take really depends on how fast you read and how much of the material is new to you. To get to the next lesson, use the navigational links in the vertical black bar on the left, or use the link at the bottom of this page. If you are taking the tests associated with the lessons in this tutorial, then when you are ready to take a test, you'll need to navigate to the page that has LINKS TO ALL TESTS.
And now, the author would like to tell you about three things she is really eager for you to take away from this lesson:
If you gain good information literacy skills, you'll do better on your college research assignments. But even more importantly, good information literacy skills are critical for being successful in future jobs and for solving life problems.
You are probably overestimating your own research skills and assuming you already know most of the content in this tutorial. If so, put that attitude aside and approach this content like it is brand new.
Slow down, be patient, and expect that research will sometimes be time-consuming; in fact, it's usually the time-consuming research that's the most rewarding and interesting.
Let's get started with a basic definition of information literacy!
Let's get started with a basic definition of information literacy!
What is information literacy? It's a set of skills that demonstrate your proficiency at finding, evaluating, and using information.
Finding information means being able to zero in on the best sources (like books, newspapers, journal articles, and websites) to resolve your information needs, and knowing how to use databases (like Google Scholar, JSTOR, or Web of Science) to find those sources. Note that the act of finding information is also called conducting research.
Evaluating information is about choosing the best sources for your needs, as well as being able to distinguish high-quality information from what's not. It's also about knowing when you really need high quality information, and when you can get by without fussing too much about quality.
Using information refers to your ability to incorporate sources into your thinking and writing, and cite those sources properly.
So, the purpose of this lesson, and the lessons that build upon this one, is to help you improve your information literacy skills. You'll need information literacy skills to successfully complete many of your college assignments. But even more importantly, you'll need these skills after college to solve problems in your career and personal life.
Being information literate is easy in some ways – but hard in other ways.
Being information literate is easy in some ways – but hard in other ways.
You probably find it very easy to search the internet for quick answers to simple questions such as "When did the Grand Canyon become a national park?" Also, you're probably adept at searching the internet for basic, introductory information. For example, you could easily find websites that provide examples of the types of animals that lived during the Jurassic period.
In the old days, before the internet existed, it wasn't nearly as easy to get quick answers to these sorts of questions. So, in some ways, finding information has become a lot easier over time.
However, in other ways finding information has become harder. That's because with each passing day more information comes into existence making it tougher to sift through and find what you need. Plus, nowadays there are more types of sources than ever before, and many of those sources exist in multiple formats (such as in print as well as online). It's challenging to know where and how to look for information when it's so abundant and complex.
You might need to improve your information literacy skills more than you think.
You might need to improve your information literacy skills more than you think.
It turns out that many students are confident they already have excellent information literacy skills, but most are overestimating their abilities. It's understandable why this happens. Our ability to quickly and easily search Google makes us all think we're experts. Plus, whenever we are online, we are exposed to vast amounts of information right at our fingertips. This leads to a presumption that we are good at interacting with information – including finding it, evaluating it, and using it.
It's not just students, everyone overestimates their information literacy skills. But, since you are a student, let's look at how this problem manifest with students in particular. Specifically, let's look at some data compiled from this study:
Breakstone, J., et al. (2019). Students’ civic online reasoning: A national portrait. Stanford History Education Group & Gibson Consulting. https://purl.stanford.edu/gf151tb4868
The authors of that study gave students a series of tests to assess their ability to recognize poor-quality, false, and/or biased information on the internet. This excerpt from the study presents some of the results:
Fifty-two percent of students believed a grainy video claiming to show ballot stuffing in the 2016 Democratic primaries (the video was actually shot in Russia) constituted “strong evidence” of voter fraud in the U.S. Among more than 3,000 responses, only three students tracked down the source of the video, even though a quick search turns up a variety of articles exposing the ruse.
Two-thirds of students couldn’t tell the difference between news stories and ads (set off by the words “Sponsored Content”) on Slate’s homepage.
Ninety-six percent of students did not consider why ties between a climate change website and the fossil fuel industry might lessen that website’s credibility. Instead of investigating who was behind the site, students focused on superficial markers of credibility: the site’s aesthetics, its top-level domain, or how it portrayed itself on the About page.
Nearly all students floundered. Ninety percent received no credit on four of six tasks.
So, lots of students in the study thought they were viewing relevant, credible, internet sources, but instead they were viewing false information, advertisements, or biased information – and they had no idea! Imagine graduating from college with poor information literacy skills, landing a job, and then compiling an important report for your boss using internet sources that are of very low quality! That's not a good way to excel at (or keep) your job.
Furthermore, lots of students graduate from college thinking they are good at finding, evaluating, and using information, when they're not! Why does this happen?
Typical college research assignments don't require you to conduct a thorough search for relevant sources – instead you’re usually asked to find and cite just five to ten sources. It's usually fairly easy to find a few semi-relevant sources to consult and cite for these assignments. Thus, students rarely spend much effort ensuring they've searched thoroughly and found the best, most relevant sources.
Not only that, consider how difficult it would be for an instructor to assess and grade how strategically, skillfully, and thoroughly you searched. Instead, instructors are usually looking at the quality of your writing, how well you incorporate sources, and whether the sources you used appear to be credible.
So, typical college research assignments are not ideal for teaching or assessing your ability to conduct strategic, thorough searches. College just doesn’t give you enough practice and feedback to develop and improve these skills.
Since it's possible to make good grades on research assignments even when you don’t conduct strategic, thorough searches – many students graduate from college thinking they've mastered searching and are expert searchers! That’s a perfectly logical conclusion given the circumstances, but the reality is that in college your search skills are never put to a true test.
When you start your career, the stakes will be higher to search thoroughly for the best, most relevant information. Let's look at an example scenario....
Suppose you've graduated from college and you're working for the U.S. National Park Service. Your boss has asked you to research best-practices for reducing the negative ecological impacts caused by tourists at the Grand Canyon.
Coming up with best-practices or new policies is a common task in many employment scenarios and requires a comprehensive search to find high-quality information. After all, you'd want to be confident that the recommendations you put forward to your boss were based on current, reliable information. But, would you know how to conduct this search? Consider the following:
Do you know what types of sources are likely to have relevant information?
What databases would you search?
What keywords would you use?
How would you know if you'd found enough?
How would you make sure that you didn't miss something critical?
Or, what if you were a healthcare provider and you wanted to improve policies, treatments, or therapies involving patient care? Can you see how it would be VERY IMPORTANT to be able to conduct a thorough search for the highest quality and most relevant information before making recommendations? After all, if you make bad recommendations involving patient care, you could get yourself and/or your employer sued, plus you could lose your job.
How long should it take to conduct research?
How long should it take to conduct research?
Most of our information needs are not nearly as complex as the two scenarios described above. Usually, it's both quick and easy to search Google to find the answers we need.
Unfortunately, this sets up an expectation that any kind of research we do (even more complex research) should be quick and easy, so there's no need to spend time digging deeper. This unrealistic expectation has created a real problem. In fact, a research study conducted a few years ago by Project Information Literacy investigated how employers viewed the research skills of newly-hired college graduates.
The study found that employers were unhappy "that college hires rarely conducted the thorough research required of them in the workplace." And, employers said their new hires "were prone to deliver the quickest answer they could find using a search engine, entering a few keywords, and scanning the first couple of pages of results."
So, be aware that gaining good information literacy skills is critical for being successful in future jobs and solving life problems.
As you make your way through college and embark on a career, think of research as a process of discovery that deserves your time and effort. In fact, slow down, be patient, and expect that research will sometimes be time-consuming; in fact, it's usually the time-consuming research that's the most rewarding and interesting.
QUESTION 1. The research conducted by Project Information Literacy found that employers were unhappy because their new college hires:
A. Were not able to develop a clear, concise presentation and deliver it to a large group of people.
B. Delivered the quickest answer they could find by entering keywords into a search engine and then scanning a few pages of results.
C. Were prone to using social media during work time.
D. Were not able to understand and use basic software like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
(Answer at bottom of page.)QUESTION 2. Getting good at searching for information will matter more after college when you are employed and the stakes are higher (such as keeping your job and not getting fired) than when you are in college and the stakes are lower.
true
false
There are three actions you can take to improve your research skills.
There are three actions you can take to improve your research skills.
ACTION 1. First, simply acknowledge that there might be research skills you could improve.
ACTION 1. First, simply acknowledge that there might be research skills you could improve.
If you think you are already good at something (but you're not) then this belief can prevent you from actually getting good at it. This phenomenon is called the Dunning-Kruger effect and was first documented in the article below:
Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121.
Plus, here are a few examples of studies that investigated the Dunning-Kruger effect in relation to college students and their information literacy skills:
The bottom line is you are probably overestimating your own search skills and assuming you already know most of the content in this tutorial. If so, put that attitude aside and approach this content like it is brand new.
QUESTION 3. The author of this lesson is showing you the journal articles above because she is worried that you won't take seriously the idea that there are information literacy skills you need to learn.
true
false
ACTION 2. Work through these lessons long before they are due (assuming you've been given a due date to read them).
ACTION 2. Work through these lessons long before they are due (assuming you've been given a due date to read them).
Why? When you start an assignment just before it's due, you are in a mindset to get it done and out of the way as quickly as possible. Very little is learned or retained in this mindset.
If you want to maximize what you learn and retain, then start on assignments just after they are assigned. This will allow your brain time to let new knowledge settle in and make itself cozy and comfortable. Think of learning as a series of stages like you see in the diagram to the right, and aim higher than just the "remembering" stage. Also, note how colorful learning is. Wow.
QUESTION 4. The learning that you do can range from being pretty superficial (such as just being able to recall facts) to a much deeper learning that allows you to analyze, evaluate, and create – like experts and professionals do. Why take time to consider this?
A. It (hopefully) helps inspire you to learn at a deeper level rather than a superficial level.
B. Thinking about learning as a hierarchy of stages will help you understand all of life's hierarchies.
C. If you take time to consider the stages of learning, you will get an "A."
D. None of the above.
(Answer at bottom of page.)ACTION 3: Read this lesson, and those that follow, slowly and carefully, assessing your comprehension as you go along.
ACTION 3: Read this lesson, and those that follow, slowly and carefully, assessing your comprehension as you go along.
It's easy to get into the habit of approaching your assignments as if you need to get them over with as quickly as possible. But, finishing an assignment and getting a decent grade doesn't always mean you learned the material.
Also, even if you read through all the lessons in this tutorial, that doesn't mean you LEARNED the content in those lessons. To really learn, you need to periodically reflect on whether you UNDERSTOOD what you read.
For most of us, actual learning has occurred when we master the material to the point where we'd feel comfortable teaching it to someone else.
And last, a couple of inspiring quotes to end this lesson:
And last, a couple of inspiring quotes to end this lesson:
"Research is the highest form of adoration."
-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin"Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose."
-Zora Hurston
Ok, so what did you get out of Lesson 1?
Ok, so what did you get out of Lesson 1?
You should understand some of the misconceptions college students have about conducting research.
You should be able to explain why having good information literacy skills is especially useful after college.
You should be able to describe how deep learning differs from superficial learning.
You are finished with Lesson 1. What's next? That depends....
You are finished with Lesson 1. What's next? That depends....
If you were told to read this lesson and then take a test to gain an official CANVAS achievement badge for mastering this lesson, then you are in the wrong place! You need to enroll in the CANVAS version of this tutorial, using this self-enroll link: https://ac.nau.edu/lms-apps/self-enroll/500696
If you don't need to collect an official CANVAS achievement badge but you've been asked to take the tests associated with lessons in this tutorial, then feel free to use this self enroll link: https://ac.nau.edu/lms-apps/self-enroll/481893 (NOTE that taking these tests will NOT result in gaining an achievement badge, however, you can still DOCUMENT YOUR COMPLETION of tutorial tests.)
Regardless of whether or not you need to take the tests, when you are ready you can click through to the next lesson!
THANK YOU!!
THANK YOU!!
Answers to questions on this page:Question 1. B Question 2. true Question 3. trueQuestion 4. A
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