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Teaching Research Processes: The faculty role in the development of skilled student researchers

William Badke, Trinity Western University, Canada

Chandos Information Professional Series

This book should prove valuable to anyone trying to design a relational approach to IL and integrate it within curricula.
Journal of Information Literacy

 - engages the domain of teaching faculty rather than librarians only
 - analyzes the reasons why the research processes concept represents a gap in academia
 - focuses on research ability as a process that can be taught within disciplines
 -  provides concrete examples to help faculty teach research processes while meeting existing academic goals

Information literacy may be defined as the ability to identify a research problem, decide the kinds of information needed to tackle it, find the information efficiently, evaluate the information, and apply it to the problem at hand. Teaching Research Processes suggests a novel way in which information literacy can come within the remit of teaching faculty, supported by librarians, and reconceived as ‘research processes’. The aim is to transform education from what some see as a primarily one-way knowledge communication practice, to an interactive practice involving the core research tasks of subject disciplines.

This title is structured into nine chapters, covering: Defining research processes; Research ability inadequacies in higher education; Research processes and faculty understanding; Current initiatives in research processes; The role of disciplinary thinking in research processes; Research processes in the classroom; Tentative case studies in disciplinary research process instruction; Research processes transforming education; and Resourcing the enterprise. The book concludes by encouraging the reader to implement the teaching of research processes.

Readership: This book is intended for university professors, academic administrators, academic librarians, and students in library and Information Studies programs

£47.50 / US$80.00 / €55.00

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About the author

William B. Badke is Associate Librarian at Trinity Western University, Canada, with responsibility for information resources and research training at the Associated Canadian Theological Schools. He is author of numerous articles and the widely used textbook, Research Strategies: Finding your Way through the Information Fog, 4th ed. William also writes as an information literacy columnist for a trade magazine. He has taught research processes for 25 years.

Titles which may also be of interest:
Engaging First-Year Students in Meaningful Library Research
Information Literacy Instruction
Information Literacy
Instructional Strategies and Techniques for Information Professionals
Information Literacy Landscapes

Contents

Defining research processes
 - Average faculty expectations
 - Common definitions
 - The capabilities actually required by students
 - Keeping the goal consistent with higher education’s mission
 - What are we looking for?
 - The idea of research processes

Research ability inadequacies in higher education
 - Where the problem starts
 - University students and information skills – an overview
 - Information literacy of senior undergraduate/graduate students
 - The information literacy of faculty members
 - The bottom line: information illiteracy in academia
 - Notes

Research processes and faculty understanding
 - The understanding gap
 - The university administration gap
 - The silo problem
 - The perpetuated experience (osmosis) gap
 - Faulty assumptions about students and technology
 - Faculty culture
 - Faculty perception of librarians
 - The hesitation of accrediting bodies
 - Conclusion
 - Note

Current initiatives in research processes
 - Development of standards among academic librarians
 - Remedial instruction
 - Credit-based courses
 - Instruction through the curriculum
 - The essential failure of all such initiatives

The role of disciplinary thinking in research processes
 - The development of scholarly ability within a discipline – content and process
 - Learning about versus doing
 - The difference between disciplinary experts and undergraduates
 - The radical shift in thinking demanded for effective research processes instruction to
 - university students

Research processes in the classroom
 - Essential goals
 - Congruence with active learning and constructivism
 - Required thinking and process skills
 - Required changes in teaching patterns
 - The new classroom
 - What about content?

Tentative case studies in disciplinary research process instruction
 - The humanities
 - The social sciences
 - The sciences
 - Professional programs
 - Conclusion

Research processes transforming education
 - The educational task of the professor
 - Departmental planning for teaching research processes
 - University planning for teaching research processes

Resourcing the enterprise
 - The question of priorities
 - Realigning academic librarians
 - Taking a grassroots approach
 - Buy-in at the top
 - What resources do we need?

Conclusion