Cognitive Development: The Missing Link in Teaching Information Literacy

They'll do a database search, and they will invariably choose the first five articles in the list. Doesn't matter if they're good or bad, relevant or not. They use the Web for everything. They have no idea that there are better sources out there to use. They want to find that one article that's going to write their paper for them. They don't realize that they have to read and synthesize and then put their ideas together from several sources. Their professor suggests a particular journal and when they come into the library, that's the only journal they want. It has to be that very one. How many librarians have said, or heard colleagues say, similar things about their students as those previous statements? How can these constant disappointments be explained? Is it that students don't know all the resources available to them? Is it that they're lazy? What can librarians and educators do to help them become more information literate? In 2000, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) endorsed the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. (1) This document specifies five standards, each with several performance indicators and outcomes, which college students should master if they are to be deemed information literate and prepared for lifelong learning. Since then, librarians have made great strides in establishing programs and practices to teach information literacy to their students. The professional literature abounds with research and best practices for promoting information literacy, much of it focusing on applications and case studies. In addition, there have been, over the years, many articles dealing with theoretical constructs such as learning styles, critical thinking, and others. However, these studies, while contributing to the dialogue, have not been able to adequately answer the questions raised above. A theoretical approach that holds promise in answering these questions is cognitive development. The present article will examine the current research on cognitive development and its consequent implications for information literacy instruction. Differences in cognitive development levels may help to explain many of the situations librarians experience with students, both in classes and at the reference desk. Mong with an examination of learning and teaching styles, it is important that librarians keep in mind the importance of college students' levels of cognitive development as they work with them. WILLIAM PERRY'S RESEARCH ON COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT The first person to systematically examine the development of intellect at the college level was William G. Perry. In the 1960s, he and his staff of the Bureau of Study Counsel at Harvard University conducted a long-term study of Harvard students, with a few female students from Radcliffe. This was a qualitative study in which students met with the staff of the Bureau throughout their college years and held open-ended discussions, reflecting on the year just past. The result of this study was the book Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years. (2) In his writing, Perry posited nine "positions" that students go through in their college years. They have been grouped into four categories: dualism (positions one and two), multiplicity (positions three and four), relativity (positions five and six), and commitment (positions seven through nine). In Perry's dualism, students see the world as either good or bad, right or wrong, black or white. Authorities (with a capital A) have all the answers; if they do not, either they are not legitimate Authorities, or the answers are only temporarily unknown. Students believe that there are right answers for every question. They will only look for information that agrees with their beliefs. At early stages of dualism, students simply ignore uncertainty or place it in the "others" category: us/others. …