What is Research Education?
Research Education includes a curriculum for college students that includes the ability to identify, find, evaluate, and use various types of information effectively. From effective search strategies to evaluation techniques, students learn how to:
- Locate appropriate books or scholarly journal articles
- Evaluate the quality, credibility, and validity of websites
- Give proper credit to sources used
- Understand the scholarly communication process
At Providence College, research education is accomplished through a combination of in class/ faculty guidance; and library assistance both through formal research education classes paired with a class research assignment or through interactions at the Research Support desk.
Ideally students will receive formal research education from a librarian at several points in their academic careers, increasing in complexity as their class research assignments do.
First Year: Students will receive assignment-specific research education class(es) with a librarian in ENG 101, ENG 175, HIS 100 and other courses labeled Writing I.
Educational outcomes:
- Become familiar with the layout of the library website.
- Learn how to locate and use:
- Library catalog
- Library tabbed search box
- Various multi-disciplinary databases like Academic Search Complete and/or Jstor
- Library Research Guides.
- Develop researchable questions.
- Fine-tune keyword selection and become familiar with library subject headings.
- Learn how to do interlibrary loan.
- Distinguish between reference, secondary, and primary sources.
- Understand the basics of citations and references.
- Distinguish between scholarly and non-scholarly sources.
Second Year: Students will receive assignment-specific research education for their DWC 202 seminar research assignments from a librarian.
Educational Outcomes:
- Learn how to use more discipline-specific databases.
- Deepen understanding of different types of information in various academic subject areas.
- Become familiar with toggling between several different research guides depending on the type of information (academic discipline) sought.
- Enhance understanding of information evaluation.
Third Year: Students will receive assignment-specific research education for Writing II classes.
Educational Outcomes:
- Learn how to locate and use data sources (government sites, data repositories) in various disciplines.
- Learn how to locate and use more niche primary source collections like local archives.
Fourth Year: Students will receive research education through a combination of faculty guidance and librarian assistance.
Educational Outcomes:
- Students may conduct original research as a part of a senior capstone.
- Students will work with faculty and librarians as needed, but should be skilled in research enough to mostly work independently.
