Will students taught with a non-traditional approach to library instruction learn more, retain more, and cite more relevant, more substantive sources in their papers? A team from Catawba College designed a study to answer just these questions.
English 1103, Critical Reading and Writing, is a required course for all first-year students. Six sections of this course (99 students) participated in the project. The librarian provided instruction with a traditional lecture-style approach to three sections and incorporated research games into the other three. We used rubrics to evaluate the works cited for each final paper. We also examined students' responses to a questionnaire administered at the end of the course.
Survey says. . . results are 100% interesting.