During activity 2, the students were taught how to choose a subject that can narrow their topic and how to write a research question. After the librarian demonstrates this to the students, the students in pairs choose a subject from EDS that will narrow down their topic and then write a research question based on their given topic and their chosen subject.
The average score that students received for choosing a subject that narrowed down their topic was 2.65 which is an improvement from last year's average of 2.56. Majority of the students received the highest score on this task as they were able to demonstrate that they could choose a subject that narrowed and focused their searches while complementing the terms given to students. The fact that 90.66% of students received either a 2 or 3 for this activity show that most students were learning how to identify keywords in order to construct a search strategy.
When choosing a subject that narrowed their topic-once again students did best when they were given a topic that was relevant to them as college students or issues that are in the news. Students scored the highest in "Study Skills", "Wage Discrimination", "College Freshmen", "Media Bias", "Public Schools", "College Students", "Mental Health", "Distracted Driving" and "Student Loans". There are some subjects that should be reconsidered based on low scores such as: "Childhood Obesity", "Body Piercings", "Alcohol Use", and "Millennial Generation". It is recommended to update "Millennial Generation" to a research topic around Generation Z, which is the generation of current college freshmen.
In comparison to last year's scores, the top scores improved by 10%, with 80% of students being able to focus and narrow their given topics with a keyword. The students showed improvement after changes were made to the ENGL 111 lesson. Last year the Reference and Instruction Librarian and the Research and First Year Experience Librarian updated the given subjects to include more relevant topics to student research needs.
The average score that students received for their ability to create a research question from a broad topic was 2.16 out of 3. 73% of students received either a 2 or 3 on this task and were able to write a research question during the in-class exercise that was researchable and narrowed. Top scores increased by 6% in comparison to last year. There was also a large increase of students receiving a 1 score on this section. Most of the time their research questions could be answered with a simple statistic or a yes or no.
There were some subjects that students were able to turn into research questions and find subjects more easily than others. Students earned an average of a score of 2 or above on both Narrowing a Subject and Writing a Research Question on most of the given subjects. The exceptions were Body Piercing, College Freshman, and Media Bias. In these categories, several students asked yes or no questions. Some students received lower scores because while they did write an excellent research question, they did not incorporate all the keywords and subjects that they were given.