About

Project Information Literacy (PIL) is ongoing research project, based in the University of Washington's Information School. We are currently collecting data from early adults enrolled in community colleges and public and private colleges and universities in the U.S.

Our goal is to understand how early adults conceptualize and operationalize research activities for course work and "everyday life" use and especially how they resolve issues of credibility, authority, relevance, and currency in the digital age.

Questions Frequently Asked

At what stage is the study now?

During spring 2011, we conducted a study about how a sample of 560 college students managed technology and multitasked while they were in the library during "crunch time" (the final weeks of the term). As part of this study, we investigated the "individualized information spaces" we observed students creating on their computing screens in order to study, research, produce, play, and communicate. Findings are based on interviews with students in 10 institutions in the U.S. A findings report was released on October 12, 2011.

This fall, we will begin a new PIL study that asks "what happens to the information-seeking behavior of today's college students once they graduate?" The longitudinal study will be conducted in collaboration with Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and UW's Information School.

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There is a lot of research already about information literacy, how is this study different?

Unlike the majority of information literacy research studies, PIL is a study “across” different types of campuses (community colleges, state colleges, and public and private universities) from different geographic areas in the U.S.

[Photo of an Apple]Our goal is to help fill in some of the “missing pieces” of the information literacy puzzle and provide data that helps answer some of the following questions:

  1. How do early adults (in their own words) put their information literacy competencies into practice in learning environments in a digital age, regardless of how they may measure up to standards for being information literate?
  2. With the proliferation of online resources and new technologies, how do early adults recognize the information needs they may have and in turn, how do they locate, evaluate, select and use the information that is needed?
  3. How can teaching the critical and information literacy skills that are needed to enable lifelong learning be more effectively transferred to college students?

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What practical impact is PIL meant to have?

So far, our research study has had considerable impact and added to understanding of information literacy issues in five key areas:

  1. How information literacy training and coaching is provided to early adults by professors and librarians for conducting course-related research and for "everyday life" research (e.g., health and wellness, finance and commerce, news, and politics or policy).
  2. How college curriculum that requires course-related research and everyday life research is developed and communicated to early adults.
  3. How the design of online resources used by campus libraries and produced by database vendors, enhance or detract from early adults' research experiences.
  4. How (and by how much) different types of institutions impact the information-seeking strategies of their early adults.
  5. How we, as a society, may understand the information problem-solving potential of current U.S. college students who are an important subset of the "adult" cohort, given their unprecedented abundance in enrollment numbers, their professional destinies, and their likelihood to have "grown up digitally".

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How do we collect our data?

Our research has collected from large samples and across campuses in the U.S. Overall, we use social science research methods (i.e., focus groups, online surveys, interviews, and content analysis) and employ an information-seeking behavior approach in our research. We are information scientists who study information flows and information-problem solving strategies.

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What is the history of PIL?

In 2007, a small team of faculty and librarians conducted a unique, exploratory research project at Saint Mary's College of California (SMC), led by PIL's Alison Head.

We studied information literacy through the lens of the students' experience to find out how students conceptualized and operationalized the course-related research process.

The initial "exploratory" study results held some surprises:

We found the majority of students (87%) did not  go to Google's search engine first when conducting research as many previous studies have suggested. Students did use the campus library, library web sites, and librarians, and in fact, relied heavily upon these library sources.

From this early work, PIL was founded in 2008 at the University of Washington's iSchool. Alison Head and Dean Emeritus and Professor Michael Eisenberg, based on a mutual passion for information literacy research, became PIL's Co-Directors and Co-Principal Investigators.

Our current research is supported in part from Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society and with a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, creating strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas.

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How can I contact PIL?

Visit our contact page to send us general inquiries or to find the PIL co-directors' contact information.

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