"What do professors do with findings like ours? Here's an idea: Educators may want to take a hard look at how they teach critical inquiry," advised Alison Head in a recent interview with Journalist's Resource, an online publication that curates scholarship relevant to the media for use by practitioners, educators and students.

Head was asked to talk about her research on college students online study habits as part of her work for the iSchool's Project Information Literacy.

"Our interviews and surveys of college students have revealed some surprises for us as researchers. We have found it doesn't matter so much where a student is enrolled -- a community college, a four-year public or some prestigious four-year private institution; today's students have tremendous difficulty with the research process, whether they are trying to solve information problems for courses or in their everyday lives."

The implication for educators is to provide more help to students as they define the research question.

Alison J. Head is one of the leading experts in the United States on how post-secondary students find and use information in the digital age. She is the lead researcher of the University of Washington's Project Information Literacy (PIL), where she and other scholars examine information-seeking behaviors of students nationwide through surveys and studies. She's also a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard.

To read the complete interview, visit Journalist's Resource.