Strengthening Students’ Research Skills through Librarian-Faculty
Collaboration
Alison Bradley and Stephanie Otis
UNC Charlotte
SoTL Project Report
adbradle@uncc.edu sotis@uncc.edu
Abstract
Designed to encourage student success in the research process, this project strengthens and
formalizes collaboration between librarians and instructors in developing effective research
assignments. The project seeks to improve students’ research skills and increase student
engagement in the research process. The project provides teaching innovation in the support it
provides to instructors for designing and implementing assignments that encourage students to meet
their course research goals. At the same time, it provides students a semester-long, structured
relationship with a subject librarian focused on a specific learning activity, i.e. the research
assignment. Instructors participating in this program work closely with librarians to consider the clarity,
purpose, and scope of their assignments as they review and redesign research activities for their
course with student success in mind. Librarians will also develop and offer learning activities that
guide students to use and evaluate scholarly information effectively. By scaffolding research tasks
and supporting student work throughout the process, this project seeks to engage students as active
partners in their educational experience. The goals of this project were accomplished by librarians
and instructors working together to provide a well-designed research assignment, an intermediary
assignment to guide the research process, and class workshops and student-librarian consultations
throughout the process.
1. Introduction
This project addresses students’ lack of knowledge about sound research practices and their
information literacy skills. It seeks to strengthen students’ information literacy skills, specifically in
finding and evaluating information for research assignments in their courses. This project also
encourages instructors to partner with librarians to develop research assignments that guide students
through the research process and to teach research skills that are targeted to specific assignments.
The project builds on and highlights the library’s central mission to support the teaching and research
goals of the university. The library plays a vital role in educating students and faculty in how to locate
and use research resources efficiently, effectively, and responsibly. Librarians have a long history of
educating library users on these topics, and this project provides a model for librarians’ support of
these goals in University curriculum.
2. Method
Research Librarians identified interested instructors and proposed a collaboration: working together to
design a research assignment in such a way that it cannot be completed without following sound
research practices, and integrating librarian support for the students throughout the semester. Each
research project included a topic proposal, an intermediate annotated bibliography assignment
submitted approximately mid-point in the research process, and a final research product (either
presentation or paper). Each class received one in-class library instruction session (taught by the
research librarian) on library resources and research methodology, offered after the submission of
topic proposals and just as the annotated bibliography was assigned. Students in some sections were
encouraged to contact the research librarian for additional assistance outside of class, while others
were required to do so by their instructor.
3. Materials and Procedure
The grant funds were disbursed to support the project in two ways: providing stipends for the
instructors and travel funds for the research librarians to present this work at a national conference.
The three instructors involved in the project received stipends in acknowledgment of the additional
time they contributed to this project, above and beyond their existing teaching duties. The travel funds
allowed the librarians to present these findings at the premier conference in their field, receiving
strong support and interest from their peers and making several contacts for future research
collaborations.
Collaboration between the instructors and librarians produced research assignments that were geared
toward student success in the research process, and carefully planned course schedules that would
teach students sound research practices and support them in applying those strategies. Close and
frequent contact with instructors and students also allowed librarians to receive feedback on the
project in various ways – conversations with instructors, reflective writing from students, and evidence
from the students’ final projects.
4. Analysis
After the intermediate assignments were graded by the instructors, the research librarian received
ungraded copies, evaluated the work, and prepared individual written feedback for each student. The
librarians and instructors then met to share their general impressions of the assignments as
completed. At the end of the semester, students were asked to reflect on how and whether they
believed the support of the librarian strengthened their research project.
After the instructor graded the final projects and assigned a final grade for the course, the librarian
was given the final projects to review. The librarians and the instructors met after the end of the
semester to discuss the research projects, sharing their opinions of the quality of the projects and
making suggestions for changes to the assignment and the collaborative process for future
semesters.
5. Results and Discussion
Student feedback on the activities of the project suggests that the design of a research assignment
and related tasks influences students’ experience with and success at completing the assignment.
Our work on this project indicates that research skills instruction alone is insufficient for supporting
student success on research assignments. Students pointed to the individual meetings with a librarian
and the design of the assignment itself (including a midpoint task) as helpful steps in completing their
work. Instructors, too, noted that the timing of the research tasks and instruction was implicated in
student success. These elements of the process were made possible by the close collaboration of
librarians with both instructors and students.
The findings and outcomes of our study shaped way we are offering instruction to freshman writing
classes this academic year, and led to an ongoing collaboration in upper-level Systems Engineering
courses. In a presentation to First-Year Writing instructors, we introduced library instruction
opportunities based on these findings. Unlike in years past, the library will offer instructor support,
curriculum consultation, and research-oriented activities to ENGL 1101 instructors, while our inperson library instruction will be limited to ENGL 1102 and 1103 classes. Freshman English students
in the project registered strong approval of all the interventions other than their instruction sessions,
citing the usefulness of individual feedback and support but not of the traditional in-class instruction.
Because they still struggled to incorporate sources into their own work, this year in-person instruction
for ENGL1101 has been replaced with focused work on reading and using information sources. The
instructor will conduct these activities, although the librarians have the written activity/assignment
prompts and can offer support to instructors using them. This shift will allow librarians to focus on
improving instruction for 1102/1103 students, and will better prepare students to develop their
research skills in the instruction sessions.
The collaboration between the librarian and instructor for the upper-level Engineering course has
been expanded for the fall, with a similar structure of scaffolded research projects throughout the
semester, and an expanded role for the librarian in teaching academic integrity and fair use to the
class.
The activities we developed as a result of these findings, and an explanation of their importance were
presented at the American Library Association Annual Conference (Bradley & Otis 2012) and will be
published in a book chapter in 2013 (Otis 2013).
References
Otis, S. (2013). Helping students work with information sources. In M. Deyrup & B. Bloom (Eds.),
Successful Strategies for Teaching Undergraduate Student Research. Lanham, MA: Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers.
Bradley, A. & Otis, S. “Starting from scratch: better assignments make undergrads into better
researchers.” 2012 ALA Annual Conference. Anaheim, CA. June 2012.