Librarians:
I have attached an article that came out in this month’s College & Research Libraries entitled “Critical Thinking Disposition and Library Anxiety: Affective Domains on the Space of Information Seeking and Use in Academic Libraries” via your -email.
The article touches on two very common themes in our world: Library Anxiety (fear of failure, shame, confusion, etc. using the library); and the processes of and disposition toward the processes or types of Critical Thinking (reviewed in the article).
I am sending this to you because I believe it is highly applicable to how we serve and TEACH our students. While we may be purveyors of reference services, and workshops, students who do not have (or have weak) disposition to critical thinking may have relatively high library anxiety and avoid research or requesting your assistance altogether.
It is our responsibility to:
- Offer an open, welcoming, easy-to-use space that encourages research and learning (both physically and electronically)
- Provide customer service, programs and services that invite students to dive into our resources
- Teach and encourage the dimensions of critical thinking dispositions (see pg. 273) so that students are better prepared to use the library, either through collaboration with faculty and staff or in the “teachable moments” during workshops and in reference interviews and programs.
8 comments:
I think our workshops in Success Strategies sessions increase students' knowledge of the library, but yet many of them give up on the assignments. Maybe that's because so many of them lack critical thinking self-confidence. I think that area could be improved by including more guided practice during teachable moments in and out of classes. In guided practice, we would solve a problem together first and then give immediate feedback as the student solves a problem while we observe. By the time the student has to solve the problem without a librarian present, he or she has already been through the steps twice with assistance or feedback. Such a process would increase self-confidence, comfort with the library, comfort with the staff, and systematicity. This process would work for accessing the catalog or databases, using search strategies, setting up a citation, paraphrasing, and so on.
I agree with Chandra- we need to include hands-on practice with the students when we go to Success Strategies classes. I think this quarter has been an improvement over previous ones (since I've been here) because students get more "face time" with us in class. Hopefully, this will help relieve their anxiety. Also, we can help them through the one-on-one times we have with students.
We can show them how to read the catalog screen for instance, determine if a resource would be useful for research, and how to find the book on the shelf in LCC. One advantage that I think we have is that we aren't a "large academic library". (although I don't care for the admin reps saying to a prospective student - 'what's the first thing you notice about the library?... it's *small*!')
This article touches on two primary issues that need to be addressed by the college and by the library team. It is clear that many students are lacking both critical thinking skills and library/research skills. The lack of these two skills is detrimental to our students. Hopefully if we help them to improve upon one of these skills, the other will soon follow.
I believe we need to start with critical thinking. Critical thinking needs to be stressed and incorporated into each assignment, class period, lecture, discussion, etc. Librarians can help with this by introducing critical thinking skills into our 3 Success Strategies visits (as both Chandra and Hilary mentioned). Assignments and discussions that we lead definately need to be applicable and of interest to all students. It would be great to get students talking comfortably to one another, allowing them essentially to think through assignments/discussions together and to reveal to them at the end that they just used their "critical thinking" skills. Sometimes I think we (librarians) and instructors mention critical thinking to students, but we never really explain what it is (or just expect them to get it).
In addition, getting students to talk and open up in the classroom setting would also serve to show students that we are approachable and that we're not here to judge them or to reject their ideas. We can also then show them how a topic we just discussed can be further researched at the library.
I think it also might be useful to bring some personal elements into our lectures or classroom discussions. A funny story from our own undergraduate/graduate career could be benefical (especially if it relates to libraries and library anxiety!). Again, this would go a long way towards showing students that we were students once too and that we may have experienced similar problems or frustrations.
This is definately an interesting article that really got me thinking about these two interconnected skills sets. I'm looking forward to our discussion!
1. LIBRARY ANXIETY - In St. Cloud we try to combat library anxiety by consantly encouraging students to ask questions. In workshops, to prospective students, to classes working in the library, etc. we say, "If you have been searching our databases for 20 minutes and haven't found anything helpful, HOLLER!" If I see students in the library that looked stressed I will ask them if I can help. Encouraging questions is a point that must be stressed over and over again. Once that first question is asked the process just gets easier. We have had great success with students increasingly asking questions.
2. CRITICAL THINKING - Yes Kate! We talk about critical thinking and their critical thinking papers needed for GAP and never actually explain what critical thinking is! I have explained critical thinking to many students as I help them with their GAP portfolio. Many of our students, when asked to write a research paper, are still in the elementary stages of writing a paper that involves reading some information and spitting it back out in their own words. They have difficulity applying their newly gained information to a problem or situation. When an instructor sets up a research paper that requires them to research and critically apply it to a problem, not just spit back out the facts they read, the student often panics. How to combat this? Talk it to death every opportunity we get! Encourage students to ask questions and help them start thinking through their research.
3. SCARY COLLEGE LIBRARIES - Reorganize them to look like Barnes and Noble. Students will find items easier and feel more comfortable. Oh wait! Emily has already thought of this!
4. RASMUSSEN STUDENTS - Due to the nature of our schools, do we attract students that may have lower critcal thinking dispositions? If so, must we teach a workshop on critical thinking skills, what they are and how to develop them?
This was intended to be a short response to the article. YIKES! I talk too much.
Everyone has mentioned a number of ideas to implement, "guided practice" would be an excellent idea for our students to become more comfortable with the research process.We may be doing this naturally, as we discuss and work through assignments with our students, but a systematic and purposeful approach would provide a structure for us to follow.
I agree with Kate about making ourselves more approachable by sharing our personal research trials and tribulations and Hilary's mention of the one-on-one reference time in aiding a student's library anxiety. I especially like Pat's idea about creating a critical thinking workshop and we could implement Kate's idea of describing and practicing critical thinking skills.
In the article critical thinking "dispositions" are detailed, deepening our students understanding of both the skills and the dispositions of critical thinking through a specific workshop will provide them the opportunity to think about how they approach or think about their own research inquiry or metacognitive information literacy. Our efforts should help alleviate at least to some extent the library anxiety our students are experiencing.
Guided practice is very important in making students feel more comfortable with the material. I try to include fun activities, where the group can work together and discover the meaning behind the information for themselves. That always seems to work better instead of dumping the information in via lecture format.
There are two easy ways to making anxiety go down in students. The first is simply by being a friendly face that is seen again and again to them on campus. If students see you everyday, and everytime they see you, you are friendly and helpful - they will come to you with questions. If you are blunt and cold, they will never come back. I read an article about how people perceive friendly people as being more knowledgeable than unfriendly people in work environments. Therefore, combine the fact that we DO know much, and are very approachable, and we will have a winning situation. If we include our good attitudes in our workshops, making them a more conversational tone, many students will start to lose their fear of the library.
The second way we can make anxiety go down in students is by guided practice and repetition of the skills learned there. We not only need to have every student try the skills for themselves, but we need to do this with their instructors as well. The instructors also need to see the value of what we have as a library, and include that the students NEED to use library resources for their assignments. If students have to use the library for almost all of their classes, they will get more comfortable with it, and will start to understand the value in it.
We will naturally develop the students critical thinking dispositions by having them constantly develop and use their information literacy skills throughout their time at Rasmussen. Critical thinking is something that develops over time. College is a wonderful incubator for this new way of thinking. It is a wonderful opportunity for us to help students develop this!
I really enjoyed reading the other responses. I think that we need a B&N type atmosphere, like Pat said, but also to show the students that we are experts, put there to help them. Many students don't realize what our subject expertise means. They think of us as a "checkout person," so after the first time students start seeing the big picture, you see their attitudes change as well.
Every student/human enters the library with a different perception about libraries. Maybe a student has had a negative library experience in the past, or maybe they have had very helpful library experiences. Also, students arrive with different learning styles and confidence levels.
Library anxiety may have stricken the people that never step foot in the library or have never accessed the online library resources. These students need to be reached through workshops encouraging library use or appropriate signage advertising exciting things that the library has to offer.
When the article touched on how library anxiety “may create cognitive interference by causing the students to shift from task-relevant to task-irrelevant thoughts” (271). This is not just library anxiety.. this is ALL anxiety; i.e. negative thoughts escalating about cramped spaces, heights, etc. So, how can we make the library an environment that deters this anxiety? Students expressed feeling shameful about their skills or inability to use the library.
When students have shown me their papers, I have mentioned that they need to cite their sources some have looked at me like I am speaking Elfish. Therefore:
1. We need to be accepting that things that are taught in the Success Strategies Workshops may not be retained due to brain overload or inattentiveness in workshops.
2. How can we make the workshops and other library instruction memorable?
3. How can we be inviting for follow-up questions: immediately, a week later, a month later, years later??
I think the best advice of the article was on page 276 where suggestions were made to inform students that it is normal to experience “cognitive uncertainty and emotional ups and downs.” As librarians we were all students at one time, so we have the experience of conducting research and are aware of the ups and downs during research. So we can say, “I was a student. I know that it is hard to digest all of this information. Please ask me for help if you are having difficulty during your research. Do not be ashamed by any question. My job is to help you.”
I agree with Heather, with being a 'friendly face' for the students. I've sent students to the local public library and they come back to me with horror stories of either being ignored or being told that there is nothing there on the subject (I look it up in their online catalog and find items that are currently on their shelf--it's frustrating). I sometimes wish we could start with step-by-step approach to the library and how to use the resources (instead of the 3 hrs total we get with them in the workshops). You can feel the tension go down sometimes, by just sitting next to them when they are on the computer and guiding them through to where they want to look for materials. For orientation, we used to have the students get up and walk to the library (it was right next door) and do a short spiel on the library and the ID/library card. I would have students that had questions (not necessarily library questions)come back in at the beginning of the quarter because they had been in here once and remembered that we had said, "No question too big, no question too small". We have not done this for along time since the orientation has been changed a few times--I think we are mentioned but I am not in the orientation except for the picture taking before orientation.
I have students that do not write outlines or have done research--when are the critical thinking skills supposed to be kicking in? I've had instructors bring classes in to do research, but they don't ask for help, even when I circulate the two rooms to see if they need assistance. A student told their instructor (right in front of the ref. desk) that they searched and searched but couldn't find anything!!! The instructor suggested they look for another topic!!! (I'm sitting right there!!!). I coughed loudly to get their attention then said 'Hi! Do you need any help?' Finally got the student steered to a computer and we were able to find materials on their topic--but really!?!
I still feel that the instructor is a very important factor in the attitude of the students towards the library and if the assignment sheet says 'Go on the internet' to search (yes, I have seen this!!!!) I feel that the student is less likely to search out the library site/librarian because the instructor must know where the stuff can be found. This ties into the idea of 'thinking dispositions' that are talked about in the article (p. 270). How can we 'open up' the students to research and finding materials other than just websites???
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