Project Information Literacy

Welcome

Project Information Literacy is a national study about early adults and their information-seeking behaviors, competencies, and the challenges they face when conducting research in the digital age.

Based in University of Washington's iSchool, the large-scale research project investigates how early adults on different college campuses conduct research for course work and how they conduct "everyday research" for use in their daily lives... more >

PIL in the news: >

Watch Library Journal's Webcast, "Returning the Researcher to the Library" and see what PIL Co-Director Alison Head has to say about the Next-Gen user and their search behaviors in Part 1 of the June series (60 mins. total, PIL at 32 mins., PIL Slides). Webcast with co-panelist Joan Lippincott, Assoc. Executive Director of Coalition of Networked Information, and moderated by ProQuest's John Law (registration required, no charge).

Tune into PIL's video series >

What are college students frustrations (2:35) with conducting research? What do students say about using Wikipedia (2:11) or why they procrastinate on course research assignments (2:11)? The PIL InfoLit Dialogs are a series of short public service videos available to anyone for discussion, debate and use in training and education.

Read our 2009 Progress Report >

Read our Progress Report with findings and analysis from the student discussion groups with 86 undergraduates on seven different U.S. campuses (18 pages, PDF, 864 KB).

Who's in the sample, so far? >

See which community colleges, public colleges and universities, and private colleges and universities in the U.S. have already joined the volunteer sample.

At a Glance

Inception

2008.

Home

University of Washington's (UW) Information School (iSchool).

Goal

To understand how early adults conceptualize and operationalize research in the digital age.

Funding

Research for Year One (2008-2009) is sponsored through a generous gift from ProQuest to UW's iSchool in support of information literacy research. Year Two (2009-2010) is sponsored, in part, with contributing funds from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to UW's iSchool.

Research in Progress

We are currently conducting data analysis of the Web-based student survey we administered to undergraduates on six different campuses this spring. Campuses in the survey sample were: Harvard University, Chaffey Community College, Illinois State University, Volunteer State Community College, University of Washington, and Shoreline Community College (administered to over 27,500 students). Results will be released later this year.

During fall 2008, we conducted student discussion groups on seven different college campuses (n=86 students) in the U.S. We held sessions at Harvard University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Mills College, Diablo Valley Community College, University of Washington, West Valley Community College, and Shoreline Community College. Read our Progress Report (18 pages, PDF).

Co-Directors

Dr. Alison J. Head, Affiliate Assistant Professor, UW iSchool and
Dr. Michael Eisenberg, Dean Emeritus and Professor, UW iSchool.