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?

In 2012, PIL began a new study that asks "what happens to the information-seeking behavior of today's college students once they graduate?"

This study consists of two qualitative research activities: (1) Focus groups with recent college graduates to learn information-seeking behavior and strategies after graduation, practiced both in the workplace and in "life-at-large," and (2) telephone interviews with a sample of US employers who are asked to evaluate and assess recent graduates and the information literacy competencies they put into practice in the workplace.

This study is being conducted in collaboration with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard and UW's Information School and with support from Institute for Museum and Library Services.

[Return to Top]

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?

[Return to Top]

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".

[Return to Top]

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.

[Return to Top]

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, then the Roy and Patricia Disney Visiting Professor in New Media at the small liberal arts college in the San Francisco Bay Area.

From this early work, PIL was founded in 2008 at the University of Washington's iSchool, where Alison Head is a Research Scientist and Mike Eisenberg, co-founder of the Big6 Model, is a Professor and Dean Emeritus. The primary purpose of PIL's ongoing research is to study information literacy through the lens of the student experience in the digital age.

Today, PIL has a volunteer sample of over 118 four-year colleges and universities and community colleges throughout the U.S. (view the sample map).

[Return to Top]

How can I contact PIL?

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

[Return to Top]