Student Development of Information Literacy Skills during Problem-Based Organic Chemistry Laboratory Experiments

Problem-based learning methods support student learning of content as well as scientific skills. In the course of problem-based learning, students seek outside information related to the problem, and therefore, information literacy skills are practiced when problem-based learning is used. This work describes a mixed-methods approach to investigate the information seeking behavior of students in a problem-based organic chemistry laboratory course, when information literacy is not explicitly taught. Discourse analysis was used to analyze student audio recordings taped during problem solving sessions in order to explore the process by which students’ find and use outside sources of information during a set of problem-based learning activities. Student generated artifacts produced during problem solving were quantitatively transformed and used to evaluate the product of students’ searching processes. Evidence from both aspects of the study suggests that students do not demonstrate development of information literacy skills in the absence of explicit instruction.