Information literacy in science and engineering undergraduate education: faculty attitudes and pedagogical practices

摘要

Despite the argument that technological advances have made access to information easier, there is an ongoing concern that university students still are not becoming information literate, that they cannot retrieve and evaluate the information that will be required for problem-solving and decision-making in the workplace and in society generally. Evidence is rapidly mounting that students cannot select appropriate sources of information, do not understand the structure or purpose of different sources of information, and cannot critically evaluate the information they retrieve.(FN1) These concerns are even more pressing now than in the past because the amount of information that students can access rapidly and easily is growing exponentially, yet at the same time, studies have shown that students have great difficulty using even a small proportion of the citations they retrieve. Solid information literacy skills are desirable across all disciplines, including science and engineering, a fact that is not entirely lost on the professional associations. A reader response poll in the journal Chemical Engineering Progress revealed that chemical engineers today spend a considerable amount of time retrieving and using information on a wide variety of topics, including management, regulatory requirements, economic forecasts, and research methodologies.(FN2) However, despite the need for such diverse kinds of information, the survey also found that the respondents depended on personal collections and other engineers for their information, and were not making good use of the growing number of electronic options. More than half the survey respondents attributed this to their inability to find and use appropriate information. Studies of the information-seeking behavior of scientists across a variety of disciplines suggest there are similarities.