First Year Information Literacy in the Liberal Arts Assessment
(FYILLAA)
What do first-year students already know how to do when they enter a library or access a library website? What is unfamiliar to them? How do they manage their time on a research project? Where do they go for help? How do they evaluate sources? Information about the research habits of first-year students can shape the ways classroom instructors and librarians provide instruction, structure assignments, and offer assistance to students learning to do college-level research.
The First Year Information Literacy in the Liberal Arts Assessment (FYILLAA) project attempts to answer these questions and more. The project examines the research experiences, attitudes, and proficiencies of beginning college students. Eight liberal arts institutions, including St. Olaf, collaborated in 2004-05 and 2005-06 to develop and administer an online "Research Practices Survey" to first-year students to gather baseline data about their information literacy before they had received any instuction in college-level research. The project has since expanded to include twenty institutions nationwide. Funding and technical support are provided by the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Learning (NITLE).
At St. Olaf, the Research Practices Survey was piloted in Spring 2005, and then administered to all incoming first-year students in Fall 2005 and Fall 2006. It was also piloted as a "post-test" in Spring 2006 at the end of selected first-year writing and disciplinary research methods courses.
FYILLAA project details - Information about the FYILLAA research agenda and our institutional partners
Research Practices Survey - Information about the instrument and preliminary findings
National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE) - Information about the sponsoring organization
