Michael Flierl, Learning Design Specialist, and Clarence Maybee, Information Literacy Specialist, presented at the fall meeting of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) on October 4, 2017 in Washington, DC. Their presentation was part of a panel on the library impact on student success chaired by Damon Jaggers from Ohio State University. The panel also included presenters from the University of Minnesota and the Greater Western Library Association. Flierl and Maybee’s presentation, “Information Literacy, Motivation, and Learning,” shared initial findings from research they are conducting with Rachel Fundator, Information Literacy Instructional Designer, and Emily Bonem, an instructional developer with Purdue’s Center for Instructional Excellence. The research explores the relationship between information literacy, student motivation, and student grades in courses that were redesigned through the Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation (IMPACT) program. The study examined data from over 3,000 students in 102 course sections from courses from across several colleges. The results suggest that activities such as searching or formatting citations may be demotivating, while other information literacy activities, such as synthesizing information and communicating the results, are positively related to student motivation and grades. The findings have implications for the Libraries work with instructors to integrate information literacy into Purdue courses.
