Understanding Student Barriers to Research

INTD 035

Think about what it means to do “college-level research.”

What is one thing you know now about doing research that you didn’t know when

you first started at Whittier College?

What We Know About First Year Students

Assignments are “exciting” and “overwhelming”

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Relevant materials are hard to find

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Google was good enough for high school

image source: Charles Ovens on flickr

74% struggle selecting keywords & forming searches

57% felt stymied by irrelevant search results

image source: LendingMemo on flickr

51% struggled to navigate print/e-resources

43% struggled making sense of & integrating sources

image source: LendingMemo on flickr

Library Anxiety

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Threshold Concepts

Scholarship is a Conversation

image source: Mathematical Association of America on flickr

Research is a Process of Inquiry

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Format is a Process

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Metadata = Findability

Group Activity

What questions could you ask a student who is struggling with one of these ideas that might help them understand/explore the concept?