Research Assignment

Information Competence Skill:

The information literate student compares new knowledge with prior knowledge to determine the value added, contradictions, or other unique characteristics of the information.

Ways to incorporate this skill into Research Assignments:

• Having students compare and contrast information by source. e.g. comparing a web site with a print source.
• Having students compare a scholarly source with a popular source. 
• Having students evaluate an article or web site in essay form by examining statistics, perspective, origin of primary information etc.
• Having students compare a primary source with a secondary source

Example of skills by college level

Freshmen - Able to evaluate website based upon established criteria. 

Sophomore - Able to determine possible biases in all information types.

Junior - Able to evaluate information sources and select the best source for assignment.

Senior - Able to prove or disprove hypothesis based upon evaluating gathered information.