Whether buying a car, voting, applying for a new job or gathering the latest medical information for a sick family member, a critical eye and the ability to effectively conduct good quality research are essentials.

That’s why we need to think more about how our students exist in the world when handing out research assignments, according to an information literacy librarian whose scholarly research focuses on students and research.

“It’s time to ask new questions of research and what it means to teach it, learn it and engage with it,” says Heidi Jacobs, whose article is the first chapter published in a new book called Successful Strategies in Teaching Undergraduate Research.

“In theory, the research assignment carries with it tremendous possibilities for student engagement,” Dr. Jacobs writes in her article called Research Questions and the Research Question: What Are We Teaching When We Teach Research? “In its ideal form, it builds on natural curiosity, encourages exploration, and positions students as critical thinkers and active creators of knowledge. In practice, more often than not, research assignments with library components fail to live up their potential.”

By way of example, she points to two typical research assignments librarians are often asked to help with. In one, a student is assigned to pick a side in the gun control debate and find data to support their argument. In another, the student is asked to select two short stories by Hemingway and discuss his depiction of women within the discourse of misogyny.

“I have sat with many a student, both of us searching for articles that fit the assigned question while more interesting topics of the student’s own devising wither under the confines of the assignment,” she says.

Guiding the gun control students to reputable sources on each side, encouraging them to consider both carefully and then develop an argument for or against might be a more effective strategy, she suggests. Encouraging the literature students to rewrite the assignment into something that asks more challenging questions about Hemingway and gender might elucidate greater understanding, she says.

“We need to start thinking more creatively and critically when we ask students to do research assignments,” says Jacobs, who earned a bachelors and master’s degree in English at the University of Alberta, a PhD in American literature in at the University of Nebraska, and a masters in library and information sciences at Western University. “We need to be more explicit about posing the problem of the Research Question with our students, our colleagues and ourselves.  Why do we teach research?  Why is it part of the curriculum?  What do we hope to achieve by having our students do research assignments?”