Lynn Silipigni Connaway Director of Library Trends and User - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Director of Library Trends and User Research

Lynn Silipigni Connaway

Researching Students’ Information Choices (RSIC): Determining Identity and Judging Credibility in Digital Spaces

• 4-year IMLS funded National Leadership Grant #LG-81-15-0155
• Research questions:
• Do STEM students differentiate among different types of

digital resources at point of selection?

• How do STEM students determine the credibility of digital

resources?

http://guides.uflib.ufl.edu/RSIC

RSIC RESEARCH TEAM

Tara Cataldo, MLS Co-Principal Investigator Rachael Elrod, M.Ed., MSLS Investigator Randy Graff, PhD Investigator Kailey Langer Research Assistant Summer Howland Simulation Designer Lynn Silipigni Connaway, PhD Co-Principal Investigator Ixchel Faniel, PhD Co-Principal Investigator Erin Hood, MLIS Investigator Brittany Brannon Research Assistant Joyce Valenza, Ph.D. Co-Principal Investigator Erin Hood, MLIS Investigator Brittany Brannon, MA Research Assistant Joyce Valenza, PhD Co-Principal Investigator Amy Buhler, MSLS Principal Investigator Samuel Putnam, MLS Investigator

Adam Fournier 6th Grade Science Teacher Emilio Bruna University Professor Matthew Carrigan College Professor Gayle Evans Science Master’s Teacher Alix Freck Public Librarian Jennifer Kuntz School Librarian Jenna Miller College Librarian Megan Sorenson Elementary School Science Lab Teacher

RSIC ADVISORY PANEL

“Google Generation are format agnostic and have little interest in the containers (reports, book chapters, encyclopedia entries)…we feel this one is still wide

• pen. It is a hugely important issue for

libraries and publishers”

(Williams & Rowlands, 2007, p. 20)

Container Collapse (#containercollapse)

• Visual context and cues that print containers provide

used to help individuals identify a document’s origins and measure its value

• Cues are obscured or more difficult to discern
• “In digital format, a document is decanted from its
• riginal container and must be carefully examined to

determine the journey it took to reach the individual.”

(Connaway et al., 2018)

Methods

Research Methods

Data Collection

• Pre-screen survey
• Simulation
• Pre-interview
• Information Choice Tasks
• Post-Interview

Participants - Alachua

County, FL

• 4th – 5th grade
• 6th – 8th grade
• 9th – 12th grade
• Community college
• University undergraduate
• University graduate

Simulation tasks

• 1. Useful task – select 20 useful sources
• 2. Cite task – would you cite your useful sources?
• 3. Why Not Useful task – why weren’t they useful?
• 4. Credibility task – how credible are these resources?
• 5. Container tagging – what container best describes

these 20 resources?

CHOOS E

CITE? EVALUATE - Credibility IDENTIFY - Container

Simulation data being collected

• Quantitative data from Storyline
• Choices made in each task
• Every click into a resource
• Qualitative data
• Pre and Post interview questions
• Audio transcript
• Video file – attempted clicks or points not captured

by Storyline

Resources

Container Adult 9-12 6-8 4-5 Blog 5 4 2 1 Book 7 5 3 3 Conference Proceedings 2 Magazine 3 6 4 4 Journal 8 4 3 2 News 4 5 5 1 Preprint 2 1 Website 9 15 13 9 Total 40 40 30 20

High-Level Findings

Container Collapse

• Students believe

– important to know the container from which online information comes

• number decreases with younger students

– in own abilities to discern sources

• only 2% of participants express limited confidence in their

ability to select online resources for research projects

(Connaway et al., 2018)

Student Perspectives

• “What’s a preprint?”
• “I don’t really know if New York Times is a journal or a

magazine.”

• “I know this is a blog because it’s by a person that wrote

it.”

• “This is a journal … because of the feel of it looking like a

scholarly article.”

• “This one’s a blog. Or is it a journal. Or is it a book? It’s a

journal.”

• “This shouldn’t be so hard.”

Pilot Results

Pilot ≠ Findings

Pilot was to help prepare for the actual participants. Adult pilot studies were conducted with 6 participants

• 2 community college students
• 2 undergraduate students
• 2 graduate students

Adult Pilot

5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Graduate Undergraduate Community College

Container Task

Correct Answers

Adult Pilot

Most agreement:

• The New York Times
• Springer journal
• Wiley journal
• Google book

Least agreement:

• USGS.gov news (journal,

website, news, preprint)

• USGS.gov book (journal,

book, website)

• Royal Society Publishing

(conference proceeding, journal, preprint)

Adult Pilot

Adult Pilot

Adult Pilot

On Wikipedia:

“Nobody really cares enough about science sources to make them wrong.”

Adult Pilot

Why is it important to know the container?

“It's important, but does not differentiate a ton between types.” “Blogs people ranting, news all over the place, don't know who to trust.” “Blog is opinion. Article may have some opinion.” “Helps you determine whether or not it is from a credible source. Blogs are opinions.” “All have a different way of framing information - even peer reviewed journals have a spin, but at least they need to cite where the info came from.” “It is very important to know if from a book or journal instead of a blog. It is important because the source has to be reputable.”

Potential Impact

• Help develop curriculum
• Information literacy
• Digital literacy
• Citation styles
• Inform design of digital information
• Emphasize need to instruct sooner
• Emphasize need for consistent instruction

References

Buhler, A., & Cataldo, T. (2016). Identifying E-Resources: An Exploratory Study of University Students. Library Resources & Technical Services, 60(1), 23-37. https://journals.ala.org/index.php/lrts/article/view/5899 Connaway, L. S., Buhler, A., Cataldo, T., Faniel, I., Valenza, J., Elrod, R., Graff, R., Putnam, S., Brannon, B., Hood, E., Fowler, R., Langer, K., Kirlew, S. (2018). What is “container collapse” and why should librarians and teachers care? OCLC

• Next. http://www.oclc.org/blog/main/what-is-container-collapse-and-why-should-

librarians-and-teachers-care/. Williams, P., & Rowlands, I. (2007). Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future: The Literature on Young People and Their Information Behaviour. British Library/JISC. Retrieved from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/reppres/ggworkpackageii.pd f