One of the key questions of information literacy instruction is tailoring the content of sessions to the students’ needs and interests. While we can get information from the faculty members, we rarely hear from the students themselves. In this study I aim to contribute to filling this gap. This case study is situated in an R-1 U.S. university with a first-year writing course that has an embedded information literacy curriculum. One of the instructors assigned students an activity where they anonymously submitted their questions about information literacy topics including questions regarding use of libraries, finding sources, academic integrity, and so forth. The course librarian answered the questions and posted the answers to the course management system.
I looked at three semesters’ worth of questions with a total of approximately 100 questions and took a mostly qualitative approach, focusing on thematic and sentiment analysis. The results showed the themes of the questions and the emotions expressed in them, such as an expressed fear of accidentally breaching academic integrity policies. In my presentation I will show the changing and stable levels of interest in topics across the semesters and will map the students’ questions on the information literacy curriculum to discuss common and differing areas. I will conclude the presentation with discussing implications and possible future actions.
Mariya Gyendina
University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis, USA
English 
French