Information-seeking Behavior Among First-year Engineering Students and the Impacts of Pedagogical Intervention

Abstract

teaches Communications in the Engineering Profession at the University of Waterloo. George specializes in developing engineering-communications curricula with authentic, discipline-specific materials in partnership with engineering firms and clients.

First Year Communications Classes: Applications of Critical Evaluation of Information in a Problem-Based Learning Framework

“…The literature recognizes the need for critical thinking and reasoning but there is not weight given to how students are finding and generating ideas-which largely are coming through informal information seeking (peers, blogs, Reddit, colleagues, mentors, social media, etc.) [14]. We know students are doing this, but we do not consider how we train students in this as well as training them to find traditionally academic sources (journals, textbooks, standards, etc.…”

“…Within the PBL model, we provide students with a problem and expect an outcome. Students entering into undergraduate engineering programs need specific training and are in the process of building the skills and knowledge they need to become practicing engineers, but the fact that they do not, and in fact should not yet have these skills around information, is something that is not specifically outlined in existing pedagogy, or often explicitly in practice [14]. By implicitly guiding students towards information as a means to an end, we miss an opportunity to engage them at a critical point in their education, making this practice a habit and ultimately making the transition to professional life easier.…”

“…These are primarily subscription databases or tools that are available institutionally through libraries, and in many cases not available in professional contexts. For students, this is especially apt as professional contexts include summer jobs, internships, and co-op positions, where students are often not taught how and where to find information, but rather encouraged to simply Google something [14].…”

“…As the discussion progresses, the goal is to validate the process to find information students already use but encourage them to take steps beyond when it comes to being critical of sources. Ultimately, our goal is to show them that while on paper it may be faster to just Google something, it takes significant time to properly critically evaluate [14]. We intentionally ask them to go through the same process for academic and non-academic sources.…”

Self‐directed information literacy scale: A comprehensive validation study

“…Atman and colleagues (1999) suggested one explanation for the differences in these behaviors is that first-year engineering students may not be aware of the need to gather information before developing a solution. More recent research has found that first-year students' information literacy behavior also depends upon their personal investment or motivation in the project (Lamont et al, 2020). The researchers noted that when students thought the project was meaningful, students engaged in more information literacy behaviors.…”