how american students conduct their academic research and writing?

How American Students Conduct their Academic Research and Writing

Hongjie Wang, MA, MLS, AHIP

[email protected] UCONN



SELF INTRODUCTION: COUNTRY, STATE, CITY, UNIVERSITY, WORK, LIFE, FAMILY

Hongjie [email protected] UCONN

Hongjie [email protected] UCONN

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Self Introduction

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康州二 ,三事 ?

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Neighborhood9

What is Academic Research Writing?• Define by excluding• It is not scientific writing, a form of writing

that aims at not duplicating prior research, but builds on or enriches that prior research with new insights

• It is not Business research writing which concentrates on marketing, company performance and financial forecasting

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What is Academic Research Writing?

Academic=research done at college and university levelResearch=information research in general and library research in particularWriting=examines, compares and contrasts older documentation and situations with present day documents and situations, as a way to open discussions on social, educational, health, historical, political and other issues.

What is Academic Research Writing Composed of

It has 3 components: academic, research, writing

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What is Academic Research W. Focus?

Focus is on Library Research in 3 major areas

Understand how information is organized and learn how to effectively search information in various formats

Learn how to select and use online databases and other discovery tools to conduct research

Learn how to evaluate search results and use appropriate information for intended audiences

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Educational Research and Info. Behavior

What is “information behavior?”

Wilson (1999) defined information behavior as “Thoseactivities a person may engage in when identifying their own need for information, searching for informationand using or transferring that information.”

Ed. Research also refers to information behavior

Difference between undergraduate & graduate students?Cope with information (under)Seek information (graduate)

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Student Academic Research Steps

Ten Steps1. Find a topic

2. Move from a topic to a question

3. Find useful sources

4. Evaluate sources

5. Use sources

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Student Academic Research Steps:

6. Plan a first draft

7. Draft your report

8. Present evidence in figure

9. Revise your draft

10. Write your report

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Which of the 10 steps are closely related to library services?

6. Plan a first draft7. Draft your report8. Present evidence

in figure9. Revise your draft10. Write your

report

1. Find a topic2. Move from a topic

to a question3. Find useful

sources4. Evaluate sources5. Use sources

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Source: http://libguides.library.curtin.edu.au/new-to-research

http://libguides.library.curtin.edu.au/new-to-research

What is the First Challenge for ARW?

Which topic below has potentials as ARW?1. I am a cat person. I just love cats.2. I am passionate about travel. I want to see

the whole world to broaden my horizon.3. I am concerned about students being asked

to publish when still in college or graduate school.

4. I am interested in knowing more about how to make money from the web.

5. I want to know how to do a good job interview

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How to Address the Initial Challenge?

What Services, Resources are Available to American Students During their

Research Cycle?

Help with Background Reading

Background reading will enable students to:Identify gaps in the literatureDiscover what research exists on the topicFind areas not adequately coveredDiscover areas to investigate furtherStudents Focus their Research to:Determine significance of your research topicExplain how it will contribute to existing body of knowledge

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HOW TO START A SEARCH?

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Begin a Search

1. Ask a clearly-defined question

2. Classify the question

3. Frame the question

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What’s the Question

What’s the effect of oral hormone replacement on a patient with heart disease?

Is this really what you want to know?

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What’s the effect of oral hormone replacement on a patient with heart disease

What does “effect” mean? Epidemiological data? Adverse reaction? contraindication? Overdose? Allergic reaction? Religious or psychosocial considerations? Efficacy?

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What is the effect of oral hormone replacement on a patient with heart disease?

What does “hormone replacement” mean? Must it be oral? Can it be transdermal? Estradiol? Natural hormone? Other compounds?

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What is the effect of oral hormone replacement on a patient with heart disease

What about the “patient with heart disease”? Younger? Older? Post-menopausal? Premature menopausal? A whole population? A woman with a family history of uterine cancer? A man with advanced prostate cancer?

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Now, What’s the Question

The final question may look like this: How does polyestradiol phosphate compare with

orchidectomy in relation to cardiovascular disease risk in advanced prostate cancer?

This exercise must be repeated for every question you develop until you have distilled a question that frames the information need to your satisfaction.

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Classify the Question

What is the question type?What is the information type?

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Classify the Question

Question

Question Type

Information Type

Answers

What is a RU486(contraceptive)?

Self Evident?•General Knowledge•Factual: data•Structures, •Definitions•Characteristics

Background Information

Text and referencebooks; Web sites

•Library Catalog•MDConsult•Stat!Ref

How does polyestradiolphosphate compare withorchidectomy in relationto cardiovascular diseaserisk in advanced prostatecancer?

Not Self Evident?•In-depth, focused•case specific•Specific patient or population•PICO: Patient, Intervention, •Comparison, Outcomes

Foreground Information

Journals articlesSystematic reviews

•Medline•UpToDate•WebOfScience

Lib R

es our ces

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Foreground Question

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Frame the Question

What major concepts does the question include ?

What search terms can be used to cover those concepts?

How to search these terms?

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Major Concepts

Continuing our example:

How does polyestradiol phosphate compare with

orchidectomy in relation to cardiovascular disease

risk in advanced prostate cancer?

Becomes…

How does polyestradiol phosphate compare with

orchidectomy in relation to cardiovascular disease risk

in advanced prostate cancer?

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Search Terms

Concepts 1 2 3 4Polyestradiol

phosphate orchidectomy Cardiovascular

disease

Advanced prostate

cancer

Synonyms orchiectomy

This matrix is the result of the initial question: What’s the effect of oral hormone replacement on a patient with heart disease?

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Example: Public Smoking

Should public smoking be banned in bars, cafes, casinos and other public areas on the basis of chronic health risk for non-smokers? Concept 1 Concept 2 Concept 3 Concept (if any)

Major Concepts

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Example: Concepts and Terms

Concept 1 Concept 2 Concept 3 Concept (if any)

Major Concept

Terms for Concept 1 Terms for Concept 2 Terms for Concept 3 Terms for Concept …

Search Terms

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Concepts and Terms

Major Concepts

Concept 1 Concept 2 Concept … (if any)

Secondhand smoking Heart diseases Lung cancer

Search Terms For Concept 1 For Concept 2 For Concept…

Term 1 Secondhand smoking Heart disease Lung cancer

Term 2 Second-hand smoking Heart diseases/ Lung neoplasms/

Term 3 Involuntary smoking Cardiovascular disease

Term 4 Passive smoking Cardiovascular diseases/

Term 5 Tobacco smoke pollution/

Why Librarians can & Should Do More?

What really happens with students’ ARW?

What professional librarians are doing to help?

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Students’ Search Skills

What types of search strategies to graduate students employ? Several studies have noted that many Graduate students do not employ or have knowledge About advanced search strategies.

Catalano (2010) reports that up to 80% of graduate students had never heard of many of the search strategies listed on a survey administered to them(e.g. Boolean operators, proximity indicators, SH).

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Students’ Search Skills…

Lack of advanced search strategiesPerrett (2004) reported that less than half of the survey participants were able to use Boolean operators, although 66% used truncation. Some of the more Common search strategies include: using more than One Keyword and time limiters. Complex keyword searches, proved the most ineffective. Students rarely Use strategies such as truncation or Boolean operators (Korobili et al., 2011) or proximity searches (Mehrad and Rahimi, 2009).

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Survey 1: ERIAL

According to the famous Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries (ERIAL) Project that studied the student research process,

88% of college students start research with Google (3 times more than anything else),

85% of students show over-reliance on simple keyword search/single box experience, and almost all of the students don’t know conceptually how to search. (Asher, 2011)

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Survey 2: Project Information Literacy

Similar study findings also reinforce the fact that students are not as competent with information utilization as they think they do. A large-scale study conducted by Project Information Literacy found that:

•80% of students report overwhelming difficulty in framing topic/question

•90% use Google/Wikipedia for everyday life research (Head, 2010)

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Survey 3: Florida Undergrad. Study

The Information Seeking Behavior of Undergraduate Education Majors: Does LibraryInstruction Play a Role?

Jason Martin, Assistant Librarian, University of Central Florida LibrariesEvidence Based Library and Information Practice 2008, 3:4

A sample of 200 students currently enrolled as undergraduates at the University of Central Florida’s College of Education.

This study investigated the information seeking behavior of undergraduate majors to gain a better understanding of where they find their research information (academic vs. non-academic sources) and to determine if library instruction had any impact on the types of sources used.

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Survey 4: UCONN Survey53

Survey 5: Compare Chinese Students survey

The Daily Image Information Needs and Seeking Behavior of ChineseUndergraduate Students

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Survey 6: Tufts Experience55

Tufts Experience56

Tufts’ Experience: Example57

Students’ Problems Are…

•Lack of awareness of difference kinds of information•Not knowing which type of databases to search for relevant results on a given toipc•Lack of good understanding of Thesaurus/SH•Lack of Boolean logic for searching•Lack of u/s of how ILL works•Refworks.

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What Help Do Students Need?

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How to research?

Patterns of information behaviorInitial starting point for research

1.Where is the first place that graduate students go for information when embarking on a research project? Why do they make that choice and what might be the next steps?

2. Closely following consultation with faculty, the internet is cited starting point for an information search for most graduate students

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How to research…?

3. Doctoral students are often exposed a series of educational experiences(conferences, courses, workshops,recommended readings) in which they discovered a gap in research ina particular area of interest within their topic (Barrett, 2005)

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Information retrieval: time, information overload, convenience, other barriers and coping

Barrett (2005, p. 327) describes the information-seeking behaviors of his study participants as an “idiosyncratic process of constant reading, “digging” searching, and following leads . . . Citation chasing . . . was by far the most frequentlydescribed method of finding materials”.

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Information retrieval: time, information overload, convenience, other barriers and coping

Earp (2008) reports that 72 percent of the doctoral students in her study engage in thestrategy of following reference lists (also known as citation chaining or chasing) whichhas been designated as a way to cope with information overload that can develop fromthe seemingly endless lists of articles that can be retrieved from databases on a topic(Barrett, 2005; George et al., 2006; Vezzossi, 2009).

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More Challenges

Students will generally accept materials of lowerquality or reliability if it will save them time.

Familiarity with sources was also a contributingfactor to source preference (Brown, 1999a).

Time constraints can hasten the termination of the research process. The overload of information combined with deadlines can cause students to abandon the collection of resources. It is generally the“. . .principle of least effort [that] prevails . . . ” (Liu and Ye Yang, 2004, p. 30).

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Challenges…

some studies note that students are not willing to pay for convenience, such as document delivery (Maughan, 1999).

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Info. Barrier and Coping Mechanism66

Conclusion

Librarians have important roles to play in helpingstudents with their academic research process

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Thank You..



