Emotions are a normal and necessary part of knowledge construction; it is natural for students to experience a range of emotions as they establish their own research process. Earlier research has studied how first year students express anxiety during this process of research (Bostik, 1992; Onwuegbuzie, Jiao, & Bostick, 2004), but recent scholarships explored how emotions assist students as they construct new knowledge. Our research focuses on this gap; using data from interviews with first year students, we mapped the emotions students experienced at three stages of the research process: Searching, Accessing (Finding), and Evaluating. Our data show that Problem Solving Persistence appears most often during the Searching process, and it is the only emotion students experienced across their entire research process. Students were most likely to give up during the Finding (Accessing) stage, while also expressed feelings of Passionate Persistence.
In this workshop, participants will explore the research process through the lens of student emotions. We will collectively discuss observed research roadblocks, from the perspectives of participant institutions. Participants will then reflect on how students’ emotional responses encourage and influence their persistence; working in small groups or individually on one of the three research processes, participants will be lead through a brainstorming activity guided by the pedagogical tools TILT and Decoding the Disciplines to discover ways to motivate learners. Reflective questions will be included throughout, and collaborative software such as Padlet will be used to anonymously share these insights.
At the end of this presentation, participants should be able to:
• Describe the emotions year one students experience during the Searching, Finding (Accessing) and Evaluation stages of the research process.
• Apply instructional practices and frameworks that help students navigate emotional challenges and motivate them to navigate barriers throughout their research process.
• Participants are encouraged to bring their electronic devices. Presenters will need to be able to project a PowerPoint presentation on a screen and have microphones for accessibility. Target audience: Any librarian who works with students, particularly at a college or university.
References
Bostick, S. L. (1992). The development and validation of the Library Anxiety Scale [Doctoral dissertation]. Wayne State University.
Onwuegbuzie, A., Jiao, Q., & Bostick, S. (2004). Library Anxiety: Theory, research, and applications. Scarecrow Press.
