First-Year Information Literacy: First-Year Student Challenges

How do today's freshmen make the critical transition from high school to college? What challenges do they face with finding and using information on their new campus? This PIL research preview highlights key findings from the 2013 PIL Freshmen Study, based on interviews with 35 freshmen from six U.S. colleges and universities.

• The college library is far more complex and larger than the average high school library.
• Information literacy competencies in high school are often inadequate for college-level work.
• First-year students struggle with selecting keywords and formulating efficient search queries in online databases.
• Once first-year students have their sources in hand they often have trouble making sense of all the information they found.
• Librarians are often the most helpful individuals on campus to help guide first-year students through the research process.