Faculty Forum, Western Carolina University, Vol. 14, No.2   October 1, 2001
 

          "Oh, that's okay," said the student politely, backing away from the  Reference Desk, I'll just get it off the Web." This, after five minutes of watching two reference librarians check several sources for the information.  "Come back if you don't find it," I responded, brightly. Our students generally  have the impression that, with the Internet and computers, research is now  easy, and maybe this student was embarrassed for us because we couldn't  answer the question immediately. Like the student who wanted current literacy  statistics from a county in Ireland, "Just tell me where I can find the 2000  Census on my computer," he suggested helpfully.

          Faculty need to realize that student research skills have become even  more simplistic with the availability of the Internet and the computerization of  library materials. It is not enough to make challenging research assignments  and assume that students know how to "search smart." Students will find help  at the Reference Desk, of course; that's our job and we love doing it. But  faculty can anticipate research problems and give students some basic tips  about how to research using computers. The Teaching Tip that follows is a  modest suggestion about how to start. Faculty should keep in mind that students  need more help now that the Internet has become their main research tool. If  faculty and library staff work together, keeping track of problematic student  research habits, we can turn the computer revolution to great educational  benefit rather than permitting it to simply add a new educational problem.

Reference librarians love the Web, but when students routinely come to  the desk after "searching the Web for three hours," we know there's a problem.  Web searching has brought about the myth of the "Big White Box," as it's  known in library-land. The "BWB" is a search screen with one box in which to  type a question that students expect will be researched in the entire WWW, in  all journals, and perhaps even in all books - a meta-mega search engine. Right  now the Big White Box doesn't exist, but many Web searchers don't know that.  There is the belief that any search engine IS the Big White Box. People are  dazzled by the size of the Web but while search engines do sort through  millions of pages of documents, none searches more than about 20% of the  WWW. As much information as that amounts to, it is pretty small in the total  world of knowledge - and microscopic in the world of significant knowledge.  All those personal Web pages of hot cars, cute dogs and sweet babies allow us  to share our lives, but they won't help Jane Student with her academic research  paper. The portion of the Web that librarians try to steer researchers to is a  private area, sometimes called the deep Web, accessible through Hunter  Library's Web page. Here you find the library's databases with citations,  articles, and facts from sources that are consistently more reliable than those  found on the Web at large. Even here, search results are only as good as the  search, and we see some doozies.

           One search string I recently found abandoned on a computer read:  "coach-athlete compatibility and thlet's (sic) perception of coaching  behaviors." I guessed that this student had attempted what's known as a  "natural language search," where a person types an entire question into the  search box. The natural language search is problematic because databases and  search engines seldom support it, but searchers assume the natural language  search as the default and feel defeated when it fails. As it turned out, the words  were an article title that comes up easily when "athlete's" is spelled correctly.  The Big White Box will automatically cope with spelling errors but, today,  spelling counts and that is Tip #1. I found this student's article by using "coach  and athlete and compatibility" as a new search string. Using "and" to string a  series of keywords together (TIP #2) is essential to searching the Web and  databases (unless you use AltaVista exclusively). Librarians demonstrate this  technique to hundreds of classes each year, but we don't reach all students, and  even the ones we reach obviously need the lesson reinforced. If faculty will  remind students of this and other simple strategies as they make their research  paper assignments, the knowledge will be reinforced and everyone will have  fewer research headaches.

           When I'm invited to teach classes, usually I play it safe and use "canned"  searches in order to demonstrate specific points efficiently. But in a recent  class I threw myself to the wolves and asked students to tell me their topics.  Choosing one, I selected the best database available but initially had difficulty  getting relevant hits. I made several attempts using different word combinations  (TIP #3), but my result lists showed that I was off base. After 3 or 4 minutes  and 5 or 6 attempts, just as students were getting impatient, my results were  dead-on and I did my touchdown dance. What blew me away was a student  who, after my 4th try, stopped me by saying, "Wait a minute, you keep getting  600 hits, but you only look at one or two pages of results. You could be  missing something!" My reply was "I scan for relevance (TIP #4). If I don't  see a relevant citation in a couple of pages, I move on (TIP #5) and work on  my terminology."

         Generally, students are not effective or efficient researchers - they often  grab the first citation in the result list (relevant or not) OR will plug along,  wading through hundreds of citations because they might miss something. It is  imperative that faculty understand these problems and help us fix them. If  faculty simply make assignments and wait for the results rather than monitoring  the research process, they will not know what the students really need to learn.  Of course, faculty themselves need to have sophisticated and up-to-date  research skills. They are leading students with lots of surfing experience but  few effective research skills, little basic knowledge, and varying amounts of  confidence. Now is the time for students to practice finding and selecting  information intelligently, not after they graduate and are on the job. Without  information competencies, WCU students graduate without the ability to use  information technologies intelligently in an information-saturated world.  Helping students develop the critical thinking skills needed to find and  recognize appropriate information is initially the business of the faculty, with  librarians gladly assisting.

         Some call information literacy the literacy of the 21st century. Finding,  evaluating and synthesizing information are critical thinking skills necessary  for employment, life-long-learning, professional development, and empowered  citizenship and consumerism. If faculty and the library staff work together,  keeping each aware of the challenges they present students and the problems  the students encounter, we can deliver more effective learning at WCU.

THE END

• spelling counts
• use "and" to string a  series of keywords together
• make several attempts using different word combinations 
• scan for relevance and if nothing then....
• move on and work on the search terminology