Information Literacy Survey

Fall, 2021

Key Findings

• 132 students surveyed 
• Business: 89; JLA:43 
• 114 freshmen; 10 transfers; eight sophomores/unknown 

Skills Surveyed 

• Familiarity with Scholarly Resources 
• Searching Preferences 
• Searching the Worldwide Web
• Searching Skills 
• Formatting Research Papers 
• Understanding Plagiarism

Familiarity with Scholarly Resources 

• Most, if not all students, are unfamiliar with what constitutes a scholarly journal.
• Three-quarters of the students do not know where scholarly databases can be found and over one-half do not know they are licensed and purchased.  
  • 49% believe they are available on the open Web 
  • 23% aren’t sure 

Searching Preferences 

Approximately 83% of students are reliant on either Google and/or Google/Wikipedia as either their first or only search option. Library resources typically ranked third or lower.  

 Searching the Worldwide Web 

Students need help understanding how to evaluate sources they locate on the Web. 

•  While most students appear to check the URL and Date as measures of reliability, a thorough website analysis requires the synthesis of several analytical tools. For example, a URL ending in .org requires further examination, and while the date of the information indicates currency, it does not indicate reliability. 
• One in nine students do not evaluate for reliability at all, which is concerning not only in terms of research, but with regards to any information intake.

Searching Skills 

Students grossly overestimate their searching capabilities. This is because, as noted earlier, they are unfamiliar with scholarly databases. As a result, most of the students who believe they are proficient searchers are basing their proficiency on their experiences using Google and/or Wikipedia, not realizing they are not scholarly resources. Furthermore, only 30% of the students demonstrated any understanding of what a keyword search entails.  

• Thirty-three students (25%) described themselves as “comfortable” searching scholarly databases, and capable of performing advanced searches and limits. However, all 33 of these students use only Google and/or Wikipedia, not scholarly databases, confirming they do not know what a scholarly database is. Furthermore, these same students either provided poor keywords, or left the section blank. 
• Eighty-four students (60%) revealed confusion regarding their search skills.  This is because follow-up questions revealed they are unsure how to do an advanced search or perform limits and/or can’t supply reasonable keyword search terms. This illustrates the overconfidence most students have about their search skills; at first, many state they are comfortable searching scholarly databases, but upon further probing of their skills, reveal their low proficiencies and unfamiliarity with how to approach a scholarly database. 
• Ninety-two of the students (70%) were unable to provide keywords that would yield meaningful results, providing either complete sentences, or just verbs - which provides meaningless results - or leaving the section blank. 

Formatting Research Papers  

Virtually all 132 students demonstrated a lack of familiarity with how to format a research paper according to guidelines such as MLA and APA. Moreover, 55% of students don’t believe, or are unsure if, bibliographies are required in research papers.  

Understanding Plagiarism 

Students need help understanding what constitutes plagiarism and when to use in-text citations to guard against it. 

• In question #11, 71% of students replied that in-text citations are required if you have paraphrased the information, which is correct. But in Question #12, 45% replied they are only necessary when quoting. This would indicate some confusion among the students about how and when to use in-text citations. Furthermore, as stated above, 55% of students do not understand the importance of a bibliography in a research paper.