The learning environment: First-year students, teaching assistants, and information literacy

Research Strategies 19 (2003) 84–98

The learning environment: First-year students,

teaching assistants, and information literacy

Sue Samson* and Michelle S. Millet

Mansfield Library, The University of Montana, 32 Campus Drive, Missoula, MT 59812, USA

Available online 28 March 2004

Abstract

This manuscript describes the development of an information literacy program that targets first-year

students and their graduate student teaching assistants into a fully integrated learning environment.

This learning environment not only imbeds information literacy into the curriculum of the required

English Composition and Public Speaking courses but relies on the teaching assistants to provide the

instruction within the framework of their classes. This is accomplished by a high degree of

collaboration among teaching librarians, teaching assistants, and faculty coordinators to create a

learning environment that is student centered. Ongoing assessment is described and supports the

success of this model.

D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Targeting those instructors who teach first-year experience writing and research courses

provides an essential link to a quality information literacy program for lower division

undergraduates. The opportunity to co-create an integrated and meaningful curriculum

(Baker, Birchfield, & Weston, 1992) for entry-level students that includes information

literacy, to target graduate student teachers with curriculum support, and to collaborate with

faculty coordinators provides a unique connectivity among the library’s information literacy

initiatives, teaching faculty, and a targeted student population.

0734-3310/$ – see front matter D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.resstr.2004.02.001

* Corresponding author. Fax: +1-406-243-6864.

E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Samson).

S. Samson, M.S. Millet / Research Strategies 19 (2003) 84–98 85

Graduate students accepted into their respective departments provide a strong base of fresh

new energy and ideas. In campuses across the United States, graduate students frequently

provide instruction to first-year students in required core courses. Teaching assistants are a

strategic target group for strengthening an information literacy program. As teaching

assistants, graduate students join the teaching faculty primarily for introductory-level courses

and as a result become members of the most important group for advancing the learning

environment in academic libraries. Although students are the primary users of the library,

teaching faculty are the critical link in an effective library instruction program that leads

students to information resources.

A review of the literature revealed that few libraries implement the model of teaching the

teachers so that the information literacy component is taught by the primary instructors rather

than librarians. This model has been reported by Conteh-Morgan (2001) as an effective

method for targeting English-as-a-Second Language students and is also reported in relation to

integrating technology into the curriculum (Booher & Taylor, 1999; Reichardt & Carter, 2000).

Collaboration among librarians, faculty, and teaching assistants is the central mission of the

library instruction program at the University of Montana. This cooperation centers on the co-

creation of an integrated information literacy component in the curriculum with both the

English Department Composition courses and the Communication Department Public Speak-

ing courses. This program has developed a model that provides instruction to graduate student

teaching assistants who then use these information literacy elements within their own classes.

1.1. Targeting first-year students and graduate students: A review

Tailoring information literacy sessions to first-year and graduate students is not a new

concept to librarians; both distinct groups of students deserve the special attention. First-year

students are new to academic research, and graduate students are new to in-depth research at

the graduate level. The importance of targeting freshmen is addressed in First Impressions,

Lasting Impact: Introducing the First-Year Student to the Academic Library, the result of the

twenty-eighth National LOEX Library Instruction Conference (Nims & Andrew, 2002). This

monograph includes articles, sessions, and workshops discussing a variety of ways to reach

freshmen and ensure they understand information literacy.

Graduate students require a different, but still important, type of instruction in information

literacy. They often suffer from anxiety relating to both the library and the daunting task of

researching at the graduate level (Jiao & Onwuegbuzie, 2001). Though many faculty assume

that graduate students understand the research process and are comfortable in an academic

library, information delivery has changed and the students themselves may be returning after

a time away from school. Even those graduate students who are technologically literate may

not be information literate (Williams, 2000).

The effectiveness of integrating information literacy into the composition curriculum is

well documented. The University of Iowa began a ‘‘matching program’’ that paired graduate

instructors from the Rhetoric Department with individual librarians. This program was

developed to ensure that the graduate instructors understood the library and the resources

available so that they could then pass that information on to their students (Forys, 1999). By

S. Samson, M.S. Millet / Research Strategies 19 (2003) 84–9886

working with the teaching assistants for English Composition, librarians have found a way to

be helpful to a group of campus instructors while also managing to use ‘‘an organized and

efficient means of reaching all the incoming students’’ (Gauss & King, 1998). Librarians

work to build relationships with composition instructors and their students because the

collaboration can ensure students learn several basic information literacy goals, including the

development of a thesis statement and documenting that thesis with appropriate sources

(Kautzman, 1996). Most programs include one or two library instruction sessions, in

consultation with the composition instructors, taught by the librarians. An example is the

program initiated by the instruction coordinator at Oregon State University that targeted the

freshmen composition program by providing their own faculty librarians with more formal

training to be ready to teach freshmen students (McMillen, Miyagishima, & Maughan, 2002).

2. First-year students: The goal

The University of Montana serves a student population of 13,000 and over 800 faculty and

staff. Each year, approximately 1200 freshmen students enroll in core, required courses that

include English Composition, Public Speaking, Freshmen Interest Groups, and Freshmen

Seminar. Based on the design of general education requirements, a student may be enrolled in

three of these classes during the same semester. The library instruction program at the

Mansfield Library is curriculum integrated and tiered to meet the needs of lower division

undergraduates, upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty (Samson,

1998). Thus, it is critical that lower division undergraduates receive instruction relevant to

their learning environment in entry-level courses to prepare for the more advanced research

required in their upper-division major research classes.

Similar to other library instruction programs, the goals of the lower division undergraduate

information literacy effort are to target required writing and research classes and integrate

library research into the curriculum of these classes (Hull & Lawton, 2001). First-year

students most typically receive library instruction as part of a freshmen writing course

(Barclay & Barclay, 1994). However, in this model, the collaboration with the instructors

extends further with a carefully developed plan of teaching the teachers who then provide the

information literacy instruction within the framework of their classes.

The project of instructing teaching assistants evolved as a proactive method to provide

instruction to an ever-increasing number of classes and students with only two teaching

librarians available to address the demand. It also addresses the initiative to provide support

for departments and their teaching faculty with excellent resources for assisting their students.

Additionally, teaching assistants are responsible for a full graduate course load while

providing a critical teaching element within the academy. They benefit as students by

becoming more familiar with the library’s resources. A final consideration is that these

instructors provide grades, and the students, usually freshmen, develop a sense of community

within a given class and are more responsive to their classroom instructors. Thus, having their

instructors teach the information literacy concepts that librarians cherish may well strengthen

the benefits for student learning.


3. Teaching assistants: The process

3.1. Collaboration and instruction with the English Department

In 1998, the Library Instruction Coordinator collaborated with the English Department

Composition Coordinator to establish a plan to teach the team of teaching assistants who are

responsible for English Composition instruction. The plan included the opportunity both to

provide the necessary information for the instructors to teach information resources to their

English Composition students and also to learn about the resources available to them as

graduate students and faculty. In these early stages, the focus was on informing the teaching

assistants about the information resources available with the assumption that they would

subsequently provide effective information literacy instruction to their students when they

scheduled their classes into the library.

Random observation of the instruction sessions and the subsequent questions asked by

composition students at the reference desk confirmed that a more aggressive plan should be

implemented (Appendix A). In 1999, the English Composition Coordinator and the Library

Instruction Coordinator developed integrated research and information literacy goals into

concrete learning elements within the curriculum (Appendix B). Throughout the course of the

semester, students are asked to continually ‘‘research unknowns’’ (Siler, 1997), using an array

of reference resources. In tandemwith the main writing assignment, instructors schedule one or

two class sessions in the library classroom and teach specific information literacy elements

introduced to them as part of their teaching assistant Camp (TA Camp) before the beginning of

the semester.

The TA Camp is a 3-day session with one-half of a day devoted to the library. The focus of

the library component of the TA Camp is threefold: (1) to model the teaching and provide a

script for instructors to use that teach specific resources aimed at providing successful research

opportunities for their students; (2) to emphasize that what graduate students and faculty teach

lower division students about research should be considered freshmen level, similar to their

writing level; and (3) to separately familiarize the graduate students with the library and

introduce them to the services and resources available to them as graduate students.

The TACamp provides the library faculty the opportunity to build an environment of service

and support for the teaching assistants. Since their actual library instruction sessions are

scheduled well into the semester when students have selected writing topics and are beginning

their research, teaching assistants are encouraged to contact the instruction coordinators with

questions and concerns that may arise when they prepare to do their library sessions. Contact

also occurs throughout the semester between librarians and the faculty coordinator, who meets

with the teaching assistants on a weekly basis, to address any new ideas or concerns that occur

before library sessions being taught.

3.2. Instructional methodology

The curriculum design for integrating information literacy elements into the English

Composition courses focuses on two main elements of their instruction. First, students


are encouraged to research any unknown elements they encounter in their readings for

the class. These include the meaning of words but especially focus on information

about the authors. Second, after the students have written a series of short papers,

they are required to write a short research paper that includes references and a

bibliography.

The lesson plan developed for the teaching assistants meets these specific curricular needs,

introduces these entry-level students to the core of interdisciplinary online databases, and

addresses specific information literacy goals (Appendix D). Specifically, the instruction

focuses on research support for the writing process—locating periodical articles in support of

a thesis statement and evaluating information sources found in academic databases and Web

resources. The classes are also designed as workshops and are scheduled in a hands-on

library classroom in which the instructor can demonstrate, using overhead projection and

viewing equipment. Students have individual access to networked computers arranged in

clusters of four that encourage teamwork and linked to printers so that students can benefit

from full-text access. The best value in this workshop environment is that students locate

information relevant to their topics and are successful in their research. Most of their topics

deal with current affairs, and students are introduced to the databases Expanded Academic

ASAP and Newsbank. Students learn about indexes to periodical literature and newspapers,

how to locate full-text within a database, and how to retrieve those articles within the library

that are not full-text in the databases. In the database Literature Resource Center, students

learn how to locate biographical information on authors and the value provided by a database

that includes quality Web sites as part of the search results. A final Web search using a search

engine is completed to compare the type of results obtained from a Web-based academic

database and the results of the same search in a robot-driven Web space using a search engine

such as Google. The basic script for this integrated instruction session is outlined in

Appendix D.

3.3. Expanding upon success with Communication Studies

In 2001–2002 academic year and as an extension of this model (Appendix A), the

Communications Department faculty member Graduate Student Coordinator was contacted

to integrate information resources into the curriculum of the core Public Speaking class

taken by lower division students as part of their general education requirements.

Beginning with the 2002 fall semester, Communication Studies teaching assistants

participated in a training session at the library similar to the five-step process identified

for the English teaching assistants. An important feature of this instruction is the definition

of separate but integrated information literacy skills that address curricular needs yet teach

research elements and utilize sources unique from those taught in the composition classes

(Appendix C).

One of the goals of our Library Instruction Program is to tailor instruction to each class so

that students learn new information elements each time they visit the library for instruction.

This is especially important when targeting freshmen groups because if they see little new

value in their library instruction classes at this lower level, they will expect little value as


upper-division students. Therefore, the lesson plan developed for the Communication Studies

teaching assistants needed to be distinct from that of English Composition teaching

assistants.

The core assignments of the Public Speaking classes are a series of speeches. Teaching

librarians had previously noted that students in these classes often lacked good topic

selection. As a result, one of the key elements then of the Public Speaking library instruction

session is the discussion of topic selection and the use of Boolean operators so that students

understand how to build an effective search strategy. These classes also focus on finding

information in academic encyclopedias and other print reference sources and learn how to use

an interdisciplinary online database, specifically Social Sciences Index. Because students in

Public Speaking also often choose controversial topics and then argue a particular side of an

issue, the library maintains several series, such as Current Issues and Controversies, in the

Reference section and has online access to Facts.com. Teaching assistants also demonstrate

use of the library catalog and how to find, evaluate, and document quality Web sites. Thus,

students taking both Public Speaking and English Composition during the same or

subsequent semesters will come to the library for research and learn new and different ways

of accessing the resources they need.

3.4. The cornerstone of assessment

The development of integrated but unique instructional sessions has been in place as part

of the lower division library instruction program (Samson, 2000) and used to define unique

teaching elements for a range of entry-level courses. Nevertheless, no methodology to

evaluate the effectiveness of the program was in place.

In 1999, Web-based assessment forms used as posttests were developed to evaluate the

learning of each tier of students—lower division undergraduates, upper-division under-

graduates, and graduate students (Samson, 2000). Library teaching faculty participated in

their development and they meet their specific requests that it be short so as not to intrude

on teaching time and include two open-ended questions—What was the most important

thing you learned during this library session, and what did you hope to learn that was not

covered? The form is integrated into the Electronic Resources page within the library’s Web

page. At the end of an instruction session, students are directed to link to either the basic,

advanced, or graduate assessment. Results of the assessment are available to instructors for

immediate review on a Web page and are also transported into a Microsoft Access database

for analysis.

4. Information literacy: The outcome

4.1. Outcomes

The current multiple-choice Web-based assessment tool (Appendix E) was implemented

in the fall of 1999 and revised in summer 2000. The revision occurred as a result of a


Research IQ survey (Appendix F) distributed to entering freshmen during summer

orientations. Of the 287 responses received, 55.0% had used an online catalog; 56.1%

had used online indexes and databases; 89.2% were planning to have Internet access;

82.3% felt they knew how to search the Web for quality Web sites; 76.7% felt they knew

how to cite sources, including Web resources; and 11.1% had used electronic reserves.

These results were in conflict with the data collected as part of the classroom teaching

assessment the previous year that indicated students were not able to identify or properly

cite quality Web sites nor were they aware of how to access the electronic resources of the

library. Based on the results of this survey and discussions of the assessment results by

library teaching faculty, the classroom teaching assessment was revised. The current

assessment builds on the findings of the survey to authenticate that entering students do

know how to access the library’s electronic resources and evaluate quality Web sites.

Assessments for upper-division and graduate students were also revised and include a

sequence of interrelated questions through the three assessments that reflect advanced

information literacy knowledge.

Finally, during the 1999–2000 academic year, the faculty coordinator for the English

Composition teaching assistants requested an additional instruction session from the Library

Instruction Coordinator to address the use of Internet search engines and Web sites as part

of the research process. The composition students were using these sites frequently in their

research, and the teaching assistants wanted the knowledge and expertise to assess the

quality of this information. Thus, the elements of Web searching and Web evaluation were

added to the information literacy curriculum component of the English Composition

classes.

Results of the assessments were collated electronically and are tabulated in Table 1.

These data support the contention, also reflected in the literature relative to the first-

year experience, that the learning environment is augmented when students receive

information literacy instruction from their primary instructors. For all questions, the

percentage of correct response rates was higher for those students who received

instruction from their primary instructor as compared to other lower division courses

taught by librarians. Although care should be taken in this direct comparison, the

results are distinctly different for four of the six questions. Results related to why to

use a periodical index (69.0% versus 54.0%), how to access the library catalog and

databases (73.8% versus 49.7%), and how to cite (77.5% versus 59.9%) and evaluate

(73.5% versus 59.0%) Web sites were much higher for the students receiving instruction

Table 1

Comparison of correct response rates (number and percentage of total) to the basic assessment among English

Composition instructors and all other lower division classes taught by library instructors

Instructor Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6

Composition

teaching assistants

607 (93.5%) 630 (97.3%) 444 (69.0%) 469 (73.8%) 495 (77.5%) 466 (73.5%)

Librarians 628 (91.8%) 646 (94.0%) 683 (54.0%) 368 (49.7%) 431 (59.9%) 425 (59.0%)


from English Composition instructors versus the scores for students receiving instruction

from librarians. Although librarians were teaching a variety of entry-level courses while

the primary instructors were only teaching English Composition, these data certainly

support the model of a student-centered learning environment that incorporates an

information literacy component highly integrated into the curriculum and taught by the

primary instructors.

Two open-ended questions at the end of the assessment allowed for individual feedback.

One hundred and eleven students responded to the question, ‘‘What was the most important

thing you learned during this library session?’’ The following are representative of their

responses:

� How to research using library resources.� How to find articles.� How to use Academic Index.� How to access the library Web page.

One hundred and six students responded to the question, ‘‘What did you hope to learn

that was not covered?’’ The most frequently cited response was ‘‘nothing’’ with a few

additional replies that identified specific types of resources such as microfilm and old court

cases.

These data support the success of the model and underscore the value of teaching

the teachers and fully integrating the information literacy components into their

classrooms. Less quantifiable is the positive response of the teaching assistants and

faculty coordinators to the program and the dynamic interactions with librarians as a

result. Anecdotal evidence is available in the form of comments received by the

librarians who coordinate the program. Teaching assistants from both the English

Department and Communication Studies Department and their faculty coordinators have

discussed the value of this approach both for themselves and for their students.

Teaching assistant comments have included the following. ‘‘This is a great opportunity

for these students to get familiar with these resources early in their career. I never had

such an opportunity and I could have used it’’ and ‘‘I’m so glad we can get the

students started researching early. It really helps the quality of their papers.’’ One of

the faculty coordinators has stressed how ‘‘working with the librarians has been a

wonderful opportunity to upgrade the quality of our curriculum.’’ An assessment tool is

currently being designed for the teaching assistants to quantify their sense of

satisfaction and success with the program. These data will be used to further strengthen

the program.

4.2. Benefits

This model is student centered and builds on a strong level of collaboration and

respect among colleagues. First-year experience among college students is described

extensively in the literature with a focus on retention and student success (Mortenson


Research Seminar on Public Policy Analysis of Opportunity for Postsecondary Educa-

tion, 2001). One theme of this literature is that new students need to gain a sense of

community to succeed in their new campus environment. The links among research,

writing, and information literacy and the overlap of teaching these elements demand

that library faculty initiate an aggressive campaign of collaboration. This model

succeeds in building a combined commitment to first-year students, in providing a

high-level of support for teaching assistants within their classroom and as new

researchers themselves, and in strengthening the bonds among department faculty at

all levels (Siler, 1997, p. xxxi).

The strengths of this model are described by Conteh-Morgan (2001) in relation to a program

that targets English-as-a-Second Language students and instructors. Conteh-Morgan stresses

the benefits students derive from the classroom environment and the natural overlap of

objectives within the curriculum. She further cites Fister (1995) who emphasizes the advantages

of shared ownership within this truly integrated, student-centered approach to teaching

information literacy that extends the level of integration in support of student learning,

retention, and environment.

4.3. Challenges

The main challenge to this model comes from librarians who frequently insist that

they are the information professionals and should not relinquish their expertise to others

and, in fact, especially graduate students. This is a valid argument and needs to be

addressed with care in the initial stages of the program. As this program developed, it

was made very clear that teaching assistants were not able to simply take the

information literacy knowledge and adapt it to a successful entry-level library session.

The integration of library instruction into the curriculum had to be modeled, explained,

and scripted so that these busy teaching assistants had a class plan ready to teach that

was directly related to the research assignment within their curriculum. This occurred

with the faculty coordinator and advisor during curriculum development. As a result of

careful planning, this process is mutually beneficial and strengthens, not diminishes,

collaboration.

5. Conclusion

This model of teaching the teachers and extending the commitment of collaboration by

providing the graduate student teaching assistants with the resources to teach these elements

in their classes has been successful on several levels.

� It is student centered.� It is based on outreach to faculty.� It strengthens outreach to graduate students.� It builds a quality library instruction program.


First and primarily, students have benefited from this approach. Results of student

assessment of the information literacy goals have been used to strengthen the process and

further improve the assessment results. By integrating information literacy into the

curriculum, students benefit by learning these elements not only as they relate to their

research assignments but also as part of their classroom environment.

Second, the outreach to both the faculty coordinator and to the graduate students

serves as a strong bond of support and collaboration. The faculty coordinator fully

supports both the integration of the research elements into the curriculum and the

instructional support provided to the team of instructors responsible for teaching English

Composition.

Third, the graduate students receive two levels of support through this model. They

receive instructional support for the classes they teach and library support for their own

graduate student research needs. Throughout the process, they develop working relation-

ships with librarians and quickly learn their value.

Fourth, the library instruction program has built a quality program integrated into the

curriculum that reaches a large number of entry-level students. The strength of the program

and the number of students receiving instruction exceed the capability of the current library

teaching faculty who are able to focus their teaching efforts on upper-division and graduate-

level research and writing classes.

Appendix A. Five-step model

Steps to implement the model of teaching graduate student teaching assistants to

provide information literacy instruction within the environment of their entry-level

classes.

Step 1 Identify required research and writing courses and target faculty who coordinate the teaching

assistant programs in each department to integrate information resources into the research and

writing curriculum.

Step 2 In collaboration with the targeted faculty coordinators, develop unique instructional components

for each identified class so that students registered in more than one of the targeted classes

receive instruction relevant to their specific assignments and learn about different aspects of the

library and information resources. See Appendices B and C for details.

Step 3 Provide instruction to the targeted groups of teaching assistants for each identified research or

writing classes.

Step 4 Provide sustained support for the instructors throughout the academic year.

Step 5 Implement assessment.


Appendix B. Information literacy goals and activities—English Composition

Research and information literacy goals integrated into learning elements within the

English Composition curriculum.

Information literacy goals Curriculum-integrated activities

Learn about, locate in the library, and use basic Research unknowns as part of reading assignments

reference tools word definitions

dictionaries explore new subjects

encyclopedias identify authors and their expertise

biographical resources

Learn about and use academic Web resources

provided from the library’s Web site

basic, interdisciplinary full-text databases

Research paper assignment on a contemporary issue

that includes a literature cited section of at least

five resources including

Learn about, use, and evaluate free Web books

resources available by using periodical articles

search engines one quality Web site

subject directories

Appendix C. Information literacy goals and activities—Communication Studies

Research and information literacy goals integrated into learning elements within the

Communication Studies curriculum.

Information literacy goals Curriculum-integrated activities

Learn about and use books and basic reference

sources from the library.

Find books containing information relating to

speech topics.

Find and evaluate scholarly versus popular

articles using the Social Sciences Index.

Find articles relating to speech topic.

Learn about, use, and evaluate free Web resources

available using search engines and subject directories.

Find a quality Web site relating to speech topic.


Appendix D. Lesson plan

Lesson plan provided to teaching assistants for the research instruction component of

English Composition.


Appendix E. Assessment form

Web-based multiple-choice assessment tool used for lower division undergraduates.

Results of this assessment are documented in Table 1.


Appendix F. Research IQ

Research IQ survey distributed to incoming freshman during summer 2000 orientations.


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Documents

The learning environment: First-year students, teaching assistants, and information literacy