Teaching Information Literacy to Generation Y.

Teaching Information Literacy

to Generation Y

Kate Manuel

SUMMARY. Whether they are called the Nintendo Generation, Millennials, or

Generation Y, contemporary 17- to 19-year-olds bring unique learning style pref-

erences and worldviews with them when they come to libraries' information lit-

eracy classes. Prominent among their preferences are visual and kinesthetic

learning styles. They have incredibly positive views of technologies' potenti-

alities and their own abilities with technologies. Like all students, they learn more

effectively when taught in accordance with their learning style preferences and

when their worldviews are acknowledged. Changing teaching methods and ma-

terials for an information literacy course at California State University, Hay-

ward, to accommodate better Generation Y learners correlated with improve-

ments in students' attitudes and performances. [Article copies available for a

fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail ad-

dress: Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> ? 2002

by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Generation Y, first-year students, learning styles, student

attitudes, teaching methods, assessment of teaching methods

Kate Manuel is Instruction Coordinator, New Mexico State University, University

Library, MSC 3475, New Mexico State University, P.O. Box 30006, Las Cruces, NM

88003-8006 (E-mail: kmanuel@lib.nmsu.edu).

The author would like to thank Judith Faust, Elizabeth Ginno, and Jennifer Laherty,

former co-workers at California State University, Hayward, who collaborated in pre-

senting some of the ideas discussed herein in a poster session at the 2001 national con-

ference of the Association of College and Research Libraries.

[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: "Teaching Information Literacy to Generation Y." Manuel, Kate.

Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Library Administration (The Haworth Information Press, an imprint of

The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 36, No. 1/2, 2002, pp. 195-217; and: Information Literacy Programs: Successes and

Challenges (ed: Patricia Durisin) The Haworth Information Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2002,

pp. 195-217. Single or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery

Service [1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address: getinfo@haworthpressinc.com].

2002 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 195

INTRODUCTION

In an often-cited 1996 article, Catherine Lee discussed the learning style

preferences of Generation X (born 1961-1981) and their implications for ac-

ademic librarians. Lee's helpful article, though, appeared near the end of

Generation X's matriculation as traditional first-year students at colleges and

universities, and by 2001, articles offered administrators advice on manag-

ing Gen Xers as professional librarians.1 Today's eighteen-year-olds are

members of Generation Y (born after 1981),2 and it behooves librarianship to

acknowledge and accommodate Generation Y's learning style preferences,

as well as their worldviews, earlier rather than later. While some Gen X char-

acteristics are shared by Gen Y, especially its older members, Gen Y already

displays some unique characteristics that have been extensively profiled by

marketers eager to sell to a Gen Y population that is one third larger than the

Baby Boom generation (born 1946-1964), and over three times the size of

Gen X.3 Savvy educators have also begun noting differences between Gen

Yers' worldviews and those of their Gen X or older professors. Beloit Col-

lege's annual Mindset List reminds instructors that for today's first-year stu-

dents, John Lennon has always been dead and a woman has always been on

the Supreme Court.4

This article compiles key demographics about Generation Y and discusses

emergent literature on Gen Yers' major learning style preferences and pre-

dominant worldviews. It also begins elucidation of their implications for aca-

demic librarians by describing some improvements in students' attitudes and

performance that correlated with shifting teaching methods and materials for a

required information literacy course at California State University, Hayward,

to match more closely Gen Y learning style preferences and worldviews. The

correlations between changed teaching methods and student learning out-

comes described herein should be considered only as suggestive of the power

of teaching to the learners' styles rather than to the teachers', as findings reflect

the performance of only the author's classes and there was no formal control

group. Librarians should also be mindful that Generation Y displays the varia-

tion characteristic of any demographic group,5 that their learning style prefer-

ences may fluctuate during their lifetimes, and that lifelong learning means

that librarians may see everyone from Gen X to G.I. Generation (born

1901-1924) students in classrooms along with Gen Yers. Librarians' challenge

is to match instructional styles to their student populations because students

not intrinsically motivated learn better when taught in accordance with their

learning style preferences.6

196 INFORMATION LITERACY PROGRAMS: SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES

INFORMATION LITERACY

AT CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, HAYWARD

Since 1998, librarians at California State University, Hayward (CSUH),

have been teaching a one-credit course, LIBY 1010: Fundamentals of Infor-

mation Literacy, that is one of two curricular offerings fulfilling a General Ed-

ucation information literacy requirement for incoming first-year students.

Transfer students, who outnumber first-time first-year students by a nearly two

to one ratio,7 are exempt from this information literacy requirement, and ma-

triculating first-year students can also meet it by taking Computer Science

1020: Introduction to Computers. Librarians, nevertheless, teach approxi-

mately ten sections of LIBY 1010, drawing anywhere from a minimum of

twelve to over thirty students, during Fall, Winter, and Spring Quarters. LIBY

1010's initial syllabus and teaching methods were largely adapted from an

elective, two-credit course, LIBY 1551: Information Skills in the Electronic

Age.8 Much instruction was provided by lecture or demonstration, and text

was the predominant mode of communicating instructions when the author be-

gan teaching LIBY 1010 in Winter Quarter 2000. Concerned about poor stu-

dent performances in mastering learning outcomes and negative student

attitudes toward a required course that they commonly viewed as no more sig-

nificant or beneficial than a one-credit General Education "support" or "activ-

ity" course that was also required, the author began investigating what was

known about Gen Y learners. Over Spring and Fall Quarters 2000, instruc-

tional methods and materials were modified, in hopes of better meeting the

needs of Gen Y learners, with the positive results discussed below. Pre- and

post-tests administered at the beginning and end of each quarter, student per-

formance on learning outcomes to be manifested in homework assignments

and a final project, and student attitudes expressed on formal course evalua-

tions constituted the basis for assessing the impact of more learner-oriented

teaching methods and materials.

CSUH students are in many ways representative of Gen Y students, espe-

cially in their ethnic diversity and their participation in the workforce and the

consumer economy. Gen Y is the most ethnically diverse generation yet in the

United States: one in three is not Caucasian, one in five has an immigrant par-

ent, one in ten has at least one parent who is not a U.S. citizen, and ninety per-

cent of children under the age of twelve have friends of different ethnicities

than their own.9 Sixty-seven percent of CSUH students identify themselves as

belonging to a "minority" group, with thirty-two percent of these Asian Amer-

ican, fourteen percent African American, and twelve percent Hispanic.10 It is

worth noting, though, that in California no ethnic group now constitutes a ma-

jority,11 and that CSUH statistics do not adequately represent the multi-ethnic

Kate Manuel 197

heritages of many students. Gen Yers have grown up as workers and consum-

ers in a largely expanding economy. Forty percent of teens hold at least a

part-time job, and one third of them work sixteen to thirty hours per week.12

Teenagers as a group spend $140 billion per year and are individually credited

with spending anywhere from $4,500 per teen per year to $100 per teen per

week.13 One out of nine high schoolers has a credit card, and a recent vote

against credit card limits for minors in the U.S. Senate gives some indication of

the importance that the banking, credit card, and retail credit lobbies attach to

teenage consumers.14 Among CSUH undergraduates, twenty-six percent are

officially listed as part-time students, working the rest of their time; most

full-time students, though, work, some as many as forty hours per week.15

GEN Y LEARNING STYLE PREFERENCES AND WORLDVIEWS

Positive Outlooks, Especially Toward Technology

Gen Y students generally express optimistic worldviews, reflective of the

fact that for Gen Yers, "the Dow Jones only goes up, people only get wealthier,

and America only fights effortless wars."16 Nine in ten Gen Yers describe

themselves as "happy," "competent," or "positive,"17 a clear difference be-

tween Gen Yers and Gen Xers. New technologies, particularly computers, fig-

ure quite positively in Gen Yers' worldviews; indeed, some Gen Yers identify

so strongly with their gadgets that "a key part of who they are is technology."18

A poll of teenagers during National Science and Technology week in 1997

found that ninety-eight percent say computers have positively impacted their

lives and ninety-two percent think computers will improve education, jobs,

and lifestyles.19 In one sense, Gen Yers' affinity for computers can facilitate

their mastery of information literacy skills, as many respond more favorably to

instruction delivered in hands-on computer laboratories than in traditional

classrooms, and as they take to searching computerized catalogs, databases,

and the Internet more readily than to using print tools.

More problematically, though, Gen Yers' positive attitudes toward comput-

ers can hinder their mastery of information literacy skills. Because they have

essentially grown up with computers, they often overestimate their abilities to

search for and evaluate computerized information.20 In one study of Gen

Y-aged students, one hundred percent of them said that the "huge increase in

information sources that has come with the development of the Web" has

made no difference in their "ability to sift out false information"; ninety-three

percent said that "the wider potential readership on the Web makes it likely

that misinformation and outright fraud will be detected"; and most claimed

they were "expert at searching the Web."21 Surveying of 109 students in

198 INFORMATION LITERACY PROGRAMS: SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES

CSUH's LIBY 1010 classes in 2000 revealed that ninety percent of them

claimed to be expert Web searchers, sixty-three percent thought the "most effi-

cient way to begin research is to get on the Web and see what [they] find," and

twenty-eight percent agreed that a "Central Internet Authority review[ed] all

Web information for its accuracy." Gen Y students have been raised on claims

that technologies have, or will soon, solve many problems?including those

raised by the technologies themselves. Mere toddlers, or not even born in

1984, the temporal setting for George Orwell's technological dystopia, these

students have particular trouble appreciating those information literacy stan-

dards that relate to economic, legal, and social aspects of information use.

The general positivity of the Gen Y worldview renders them an unrespon-

sive audience for lectures on the downsides, the negatives, of anything, and

their faith in technologies and their own abilities vis-?-vis technologies make

them particularly unreceptive to discourses on the "evils" of the Internet, infor-

mation on it, or the digital divide. In Winter 2000, two of the ten weeks of

LIBY 1010 were devoted specifically to the Internet. The first week's instruc-

tion consisted of a lecture on the Internet's development, posting and access-

ing of information on the Internet, and social and ethical implications of the

Internet. Following the lecture, a homework assignment asked students to

classify URLs by their domain (e.g., .edu is educational); to use a subject di-

rectory to find information; and to use a search engine to find information. In

the second week, students were given a lecture on the need and criteria for

evaluating Internet information, as well as some in-class, active learning,

group activities on evaluating Internet information. The Internet sessions were

taught in the eighth and ninth weeks of a ten-week-long quarter, effectively po-

sitioning the Internet as an afterthought and addition to the print resources

taught in the first through seventh weeks. Students' comments on the course

evaluations for Winter 2000 centered upon their unhappiness with how the

Internet was taught. First, the progression from print to electronic?essentially

mirroring the chronological order in which Gen X and older librarians encoun-

tered these media?seemed artificial to the students, who often learned to value

print books and articles after their initial familiarity with the Internet. Teaching

the Internet as separate from books and articles also belied the fact that al-

though the Internet can be thought of as a resource, Gen Yers generally view it

as an access tool, a distribution mechanism for books, articles, and music. In-

struction by lecturing was problematic in its own right, as is discussed below,

but lecturing upon the drawbacks of the Internet was especially inappropriate

for these students. They interpreted the words of caution said by the instructor

about the Internet as "trashing" of a technology whose limitations they had not

yet personally experienced by someone professionally threatened by the

Internet.

Kate Manuel 199

Beginning in Spring Quarter 2000, modifications in how the Internet was

presented to students were made that resulted in more positive student evalua-

tions of the Internet portions of the course and in increased student mastery of

learning outcomes. In Spring 2000, there were no separate classes on the

Internet or evaluating Internet information. Rather, the Internet was incorpo-

rated into other classes on finding various types of information sources and

evaluating information. This addressed the problem that students had with po-

sitioning the Internet as an afterthought to print sources. Lectures on using the

Internet and evaluating Internet information were also replaced with active,

discovery-learning opportunities. Students were, for example, asked to use

Web search engines to find information on the performance of George W.

Bush and John McCain in a debate the morning after the debate occurred. Stu-

dents, who had previously rated themselves skilled Web searchers, were sur-

prised to discover that they could find no pages with the information

sought?only older pages on the debate's likely structure, topics, and outcomes.

Students were next directed to URLs of particular pages, like CNN's, that pro-

vided the information. They then became a highly receptive audience for the

lesson that search engines do not search pages live or in real time; rather, they

rely upon indexing of Web pages done days or even weeks before. Similarly,

after being given a brief list of criteria relating to authority and credibility;

scope, coverage, and relevance; quality; bias and accuracy; currency and time-

liness; and commercialism, students were given URLs of spurious Web pages,

such as "Feline Reactions to Bearded Men" (http://www.improbable.com/

airchives/classical/cat/cat.html) and "California's Velcro Crop under Chal-

lenge" (http://home.inreach.com/kumbach/velcro.html), and were asked to

evaluate them. Every student in Spring 2000 accepted these spurious sites as

genuine and scholarly, and could cite evaluative criteria to back up their cate-

gorizations, thereby proving to themselves not only the importance of evaluat-

ing but also the need to think while evaluating, rather than simply applying

criteria uncritically.22 Students learned more and viewed their instruction

more favorably once instruction shifted from lecturing about the problems

with Internet information to enabling students to experience the Internet's lim-

itations themselves.

Oriented Toward Images, Not Linear Text

Even before the appearance of Gen Y, educators recognized that reading

text is the primary and preferred mode of learning for only a small percentage

of the population?and those chiefly the people who become teachers, librari-

ans, etc.23 In general, the average student retains only ten percent of what s/he

reads but twenty to thirty percent of what s/he sees.24 Visual modes of learning

200 INFORMATION LITERACY PROGRAMS: SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES

are especially important for Gen Yers, who grew up on television, video

games, computers, the Web, and other increasingly sophisticated multimedia

presentations.25 Today's first-year college students have watched, on average,

over 15,000 hours of television before coming to campus, and "text alone or

text with only minimal pictures does not reflect the normal experiences of

most students today, who spend far more time watching television than read-

ing."26 Much of their reading has actually been done on the Web, where people

could more accurately be said to scan rather than to read.27 Indeed, some spec-

ulate that the Web with its hyperlinks has already begun to transform the way

in which humans process textual information: "What happens when you fol-

low these links? You react with an itchy mouse finger, but not with your mind.

Instead of finishing the paragraph you are reading, you're already off to an-

other server to get more information. Your eyes are attracted by underlined

text because it stands out?it's different, and must somehow be more important

than the plain text that surrounds it . . . Our minds are becoming more and more

dispersed by these reflexes . . . "28

With LIBY 1010, it was found that significant numbers of students simply

would not process extensive written directions of the sort needed to tell them

what databases to access and what do in these databases for homework. Stu-

dents would either try to infer the directions from the substance of the home-

work questions, or they would turn up with incomplete assignments, claiming

that they did not understand them. Extensive written directions were, in fact,

accompanied by a fairly high number of student refusals to do particular as-

signments or portions of them. These refusals were by students who otherwise

did the coursework but opted not to do a particular assignment, or portion of it,

with the resultant loss of points, and were interpreted by this instructor as a

form of the "not learning" described by Herbert Kohl. That is, students' un-

willingness to follow these directions was not dismissed as simple laziness,

disobedience, or lack of knowledge, but rather was viewed as an assertion of

personal values and determination: "Not learning tends to take place when

someone has to deal with unavoidable challenges to her or his personal and

family loyalties, integrity, and identity. In such situations, there are forced

choices and no apparent middle ground. To agree to learn from a stranger who

does not respect your integrity causes a major loss of self."29 Refusals were a

particular problem in Winter 2000, when students were given directions telling

them, for example, to:

? Go to HAYSTAC, the CSUH library catalog, at http://134.154.30.10.

? Click on the box labeled word search. It's the top box in the middle column.

? Enter some word(s) related to the topic of your final project and then

press the Enter key or click on the Submit button.

Kate Manuel 201

? Look through the title list to find a book on your topic.

? Click on the record for this title to view the entire record.

? Etc. . . .

Librarians found these detailed, step-by-step, written directions congenial.

Not so for the students in Winter and Spring 2000. Six out of thirty-three stu-

dents (eighteen percent) in Winter quarter refused to do the assignment, as did

three out of twenty-two students (fourteen percent) in Spring quarter. Scores

on the completed assignments were themselves low?sixty-eight percent in

Winter and sixty-two percent in Spring?as was the percentage of increase in

students' post-test scores compared to their pre-test scores on questions relat-

ing to catalogs and databases (seventeen percent in Winter and twelve percent

in Spring), the topics of this homework assignment. In Fall 2000, the catalog

and database homework was first presented to students with pictures rather

than words illustrating the directions. Reductions in students' refusals to do the

assignment followed, as did increases in students' scores on the assignments

and in the percentage of increase in post-test scores compared to pre-test

scores on questions relating to catalogs and databases. Only one student out of

twenty-five failed to do this assignment, a drop of between ten and fourteen

percent in the refusal rate; the average grade was seventy-nine percent, an in-

crease of eleven to sixteen percent; and the percent of improvement on

post-test scores compared to pre-test scores rose to twenty-one percent, a gain

of four to nine percent. These gains held true in Winter and Spring 2001, when

visual rather than textual directions were also used.30

Related to Gen Y's orientation toward images is a preference for holistic

processing and "nonlinear, nonsequential modes of learning."31 Gen Yers gen-

erally need to see the big picture, in every sense of the word, when being intro-

duced to concepts and procedures. "Modem kids don't learn by taking little

logical bits and then stringing or weaving these bits into a picture. . . . They use

whole pictures . . . to convey a technique or idea. They have to see a picture

first; then a teacher can tear apart the picture into components and test students

on their ability to rebuild the picture."32 Many librarians and teachers, in con-

trast, are quite comfortable being told to do step X, then step Y, then step Z

without first being told the outcome or purpose of these steps. In Winter 2000,

LIBY 1010 students were introduced to focusing research topics by a

worksheet featuring, in addition to a lot of text, a step-by-step approach that

gave them little sense of how their focused topics related to the steps taken.

The steps essentially asked students to narrow the range of information poten-

tially relevant to their topics, but the relationship of their topic to this totality of

information was obscured by the process. Students were asked to take their

proposed final project topics?generally subjects of enormous scope such as

202 INFORMATION LITERACY PROGRAMS: SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES

crime or children?and ask themselves who, what, where, when, why, and how

to reach a final, focused topic. The approach was sound but was initially inap-

propriately packaged for Gen Yers. Students worked through this list of ques-

tions and ended up with a written expression of a topic that they had trouble

re-contextualizing within a broader information universe.

Beginning in Spring 2000, students were asked to focus topics using the

same questions, but the questions were presented to them in a visual way,

drawing upon a common graphic organizer layout.33 Students more easily fo-

cused topics using this approach because they could first address whichever

question (who, what, etc.) seemed most appropriate to them and could easily

see where their focused topic fit with a broader information universe. Exami-

nation of students' final projects, which were to assemble resources on appro-

priately focused topics, revealed that students in Spring 2000 and subsequent

quarters were better able than students in Winter 2000 to produce focused top-

ics. This change in presentation was accompanied by a twenty-two percent de-

crease in the number of totally non-focused topics, a seven percent increase in

the number of somewhat focused topics, and a thirty-five to forty-four percent

increase in the number of fully focused topics. In Winter 2000, only fifty-six

percent of topics were fully focused (e.g., types of bilingual education offered

in California), while eighty-three percent of the topics were somewhat focused

(e.g., history of cartoons) and twenty-two percent were non-focused (e.g.,

breast cancer). In Spring 2000, all of the topics were fully focused and in-

cluded such questions as how the move to the United States has impacted the

celebration of traditional Mexican holidays by Mexican Americans and

whether wearing hard contacts stabilizes eyesight. In Fall 2000, while only

ninety-one percent of topics were fully focused (e.g., effects of footware on

track and field performance), one hundred percent were somewhat focused

(e.g., recent innovations in roller coaster design or the chemistry of fireworks).

Desire for Customized Experiences and Choices

Gen Yers grew up with experiences of being the "absolute ruler[s] of [their]

own digital universe[s]," creating virtual worlds where they can be whom they

choose, control their settings, and determine courses of action, and because

"the way you interact with your present software shapes your future needs,"34

they expect future educational offerings to match current entertainment prod-

ucts. They have also come of age during a "mass customization" movement,35

which touts technologies, such as personal digital assistants and intelligent

agents, that (could someday) do their users' bidding. "Mass customization"

has been promoted to Gen Yers as consumers of goods?offering them what

they want for what they pay, offering them choices36?but it has also been of-

Kate Manuel 203

fered to them by educational systems that increasingly allow, if not encourage,

students to view themselves as consumers of learning, who can select the

courses they need to get the degree they need to get the job they want to support

the lifestyle to which they aspire. Articles in general interest periodicals like

US News & World Report, for example, praise the potentialities of education

at one's "own pace, and in places and at times of [one's] own choosing,"37

while Maclean's asks "Why can't professors spend more time ensuring that

courses are professionally relevant? Why is the focus on expanding the intel-

lect rather than expanding marketable skills? Why don't four years of hard

work and high bills lead more directly to a good career?"38

Required courses like LIBY 1010 inherently conflict with students' desires

to be consumers of curricular offerings. Instead of being able to pick courses

they think will most help them reach their desired ends, they are told they must

take this course, whose purpose they are loathe to concede, particularly insofar

as they view the Web as a universal information repository and themselves as

master searchers. As one student aptly put it when describing LIBY 1010, a

course he had not yet taken, to a peer, "LIBY 1010?I heard that don't do

nothin' for you." In Winter and Spring 2000, though, students' desires to be

consumers of their educations were thwarted not just in the taking of LIBY

1010 in itself but also within LIBY 1010's coursework. Beyond the choice of

final project topic, which was left to students' choosing, all students were

taught the same things, presumed to know?and want to know?the same things,

and assessed using the same homework assignments. Students understandably

resented this. During these two quarters, all students were given the same

Internet assignment, an assignment that essentially assumed students had no

prior knowledge of Web searching and great interest in learning the mechanics

of searching. Everyone was asked to browse Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com)

by subject categories to find a site with good information on her/his topic and

then use two search engines from a listing of major search engines (e.g.,

Google, AltaVista) and compare their search results. Some students were ad-

ept Web-searchers and felt that subject directories and major search engines

were old hat. These students saw this assignment as busywork, something

anathema to Gen Yers.

In Fall 2000, recognizing students' desire for customizable learning experi-

ences, three different versions of an Internet assignment were made available;

students chose which version they did based upon their prior knowledge and

personal interests. One version of the assignment focused on search basics

(subject directories and syntax for using search engines) and was designed for

those students who had had minimal exposure to computers or Web searching.

Another version focused on specialty search engines such as SciCentral

(http://www.scicentral.com) and Social Work Search (http://www.socialwork

204 INFORMATION LITERACY PROGRAMS: SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES

search.com), which were often unknown to users of general search engines

and enhanced their abilities to find relevant materials. Finally, there was an as-

signment focusing on the digital divide for students who either were more in-

terested in the social impact of the Web than the mechanics of searching or

who had the mechanics down but had never considered their societal implica-

tions. Students distributed themselves evenly among the three assignments?

especially after being assured that one version really was not any "harder" than

another. Fewer students refused to do these customized assignments: refusals

dropped from seven out of thirty-three students in Winter 2000 and four out of

twenty-two students in Spring 2000 to two out of twenty-five students in Fall

2000. Average scores on the assignment increased from sixty-nine percent in

Winter 2000 and sixty-three percent in Spring 2000 to seventy-seven percent

in Fall 2000, a gain of seven to fourteen percent. Simultaneously, students'

post-test scores on questions having to do with the Web increased compared to

pre-test scores by three to thirteen percent between Winter/Spring 2000 and

Fall 2000. Other successful applications of customization included allowing

students to choose the format of their final project's presentation (paper, oral

report, Web page, poster, etc.) and giving them a choice of readings through-

out the course.39

Low Thresholds for Boredom, Unwillingness to Memorize

Gen Yers are commonly characterized as having low thresholds for

boredom40 and short attention spans.41 Indeed, some three million Gen Yers,

roughly eighty percent of them boys, take Ritalin regularly to treat attention

deficit disorders.42 Gen Yers are also generally described as unwilling to

memorize information and said to prefer that education come in entertaining

packages.43 None of these typically pejorative descriptions of Gen Y are all

that surprising when one considers the environment in which they have been

raised. Video games, music videos, television, and other entertainment media

take much of the blame for the short attention spans, low thresholds for bore-

dom, and preference for being entertained characteristic of today's youth: for

example, Neil Howe and William Strauss write that Gen Yers "have grown up

with video games in the same way that Boomers grew up with board

games?but where the slow speed and little action of the 50's board game

prompted imagination and conversation, the hyperspeed and furious action of

the '90s video games controlled one and stifled the other."44 Beyond the

screens of entertainment products, though, theirs is a fast-paced world that ac-

tively celebrates rapid change:45 certain Japanese electronic products now

boast of having a three-month life cycle.46 This fast-paced world also valorizes

Kate Manuel 205

multi-tasking, doing several things at once, and "[t]eens are typically on the

phone, with the computer on, surfing the Web, instant messaging or chatting

and either listening to music or watching television at the same time. That's

just the standard operating procedure for them."47 After multi-tasking (e.g.,

working on the computer and listening to music), single-tasking (e.g., "just"

reading a book or writing an essay) probably does seem somewhat "boring" in

that it lacks stimuli normally present.

In reality, many of Gen Y's traits simply heighten traits previously charac-

teristic of typical learners. The upper extent of the average attention span was

twenty to thirty minutes before MTV or video games originated.48 Lengthy or

poorly delivered presentations were seen as "boring" long before the 1990s,

and most people would rather not be bored than be bored, would rather be en-

tertained than work. Good teaching has thus long recognized that the tempo

and pacing of instruction, as well as the instructional strategies used, need to

vary to keep students' interest.49 Gen Yers are, however, more vocal about be-

ing bored, more willing to speak out against "pointless" memorization and

busywork, than earlier generations of students.50 They are also more likely to

hold instructors accountable for making learning boring or interesting to

them.51 One assignment that LIBY 1010 students most resented as boring and

pointless was an initial assignment introducing them to library locations, li-

brary services, and the basics of Library of Congress classification. Short an-

swer questions asking students to write in names of places and services;

checklists on which to mark the locations of places or services; and questions

about materials to be found at given call numbers were hallmarks of the assign-

ment and subsequent quiz. Students were asked to memorize which call num-

bers corresponded to which subject materials, not just the basic principles for

reading LC call numbers. Memorization of call numbers and corresponding

subjects was simply stripped from the syllabus in subsequent quarters. Instead,

the assumption was made that sending students to find reference materials,

books, and articles on their topic would, in itself, be conducive to getting the

basic points across: after visiting astronomy materials in the QB section three

or four times, most students understood that materials on a subject shared a lo-

cation and had a sense of what that location was for their topic. Thus, repeated

exposure to a concept substituted for memorization in adding to students'

knowledge.

More fundamentally, though, in Spring 2000 the notion that "the more stu-

dents enjoy their work, the more learning occurs"52 was used to transform this

assignment on library services, locations, and call numbers into a more ludic, a

more playful, experience for students. The "boring" fill-in-the-blank and

checklist assignment was replaced with a crossword puzzle. The clues corre-

sponded to the questions of the old assignment, with the words to be written

206 INFORMATION LITERACY PROGRAMS: SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES

into the puzzle being what students had previously filled into the blanks or

checked on lists. Student evaluations strongly indicated that they found this re-

vised assignment more fun. Their post-test scores also increased by an addi-

tional ten percent compared to their pre-test scores on questions having to do

with topics addressed on this assignment. While students in Winter 2000 did

fourteen percent better on post-test questions on these topics than on pre-test

questions, students in Spring and Fall 2000, who got the revised assignment,

did twenty-four and twenty-five percent better, respectively, on the post-test

questions than they had done on pre-test questions.

Active Learning Is Even Better

When It Is Also Peer-Learning

Giving Gen Yers opportunities for active learning not only lessens their

likelihood of boredom by increasing opportunities for engagement, but also in-

creases their mastery of learning materials.53 Lecture has long been recog-

nized as a teaching method best suited to the learning styles and preferences of

only a few students: "Very little of a lecture can be recalled except in the case

of listeners with above-average education and intelligence."54 The average re-

tention rate for materials presented in lectures is five percent, compared to fifty

percent for group discussion, seventy-five percent for practice by doing, and

ninety percent for teaching others.55 Lecture is an especially ineffective in-

structional technique for Gen Y students. Not only does "[t]he old,

stand-and-deliver, you-will-listen-to-me, I-am-the-teacher-you-are-the-stu-

dent approach . . . not work"56 for Gen Yers, but Gen Yers are also more likely

to tell teachers, in evaluations and elsewhere, that this is the case.57 LIBY 1010

students were taught the types and uses of reference sources in Winter 2000 by

lecture and demonstration. They were told what the types of reference sources

were and what kinds of information each type provides, as well as shown ex-

amples of each type. Students did not retain much of this information, despite

the fact that an entire class meeting and a homework assignment focused on

reference sources.

Beginning in Spring 2000 students were introduced to reference sources by

a kinesthetic learning activity that also drew upon their desire for customized

learning experiences. Every student was given a set of four cards, each of

which asked a question and gave the title of a reference book that would an-

swer the question. Students looked up the book's title in the catalog, noted the

call number, went into the reference stacks, found the item, and used it to an-

swer the question. While doing so, they noted what type of reference source

each item was. Every student was directed to four different reference sources

Kate Manuel 207

relating to her/his topic. After each student had found the answers to her/his

questions?effectively learning what types of sources gave what types of infor-

mation?students shared their findings with each other. This enabled each stu-

dent to learn about types of reference sources to which s/he was not directed

and to learn from each other, a most effective way for Gen Yers to learn.58

Evaluations expressed students' happiness to be up and moving about, as well

as to be directed to information relevant to their topics. They also retained

more information about the types of reference sources and their uses. While

students who were lectured about reference sources did twenty-nine percent

better on post-test questions than on pre-test questions, students who learned

reference sources using kinesthetic methods did forty-one percent better on

post-test questions than on pre-test questions, a gain of twelve percent.

Opportunities for peer learning are incredibly important for Gen Yers. Gen

Yers identify strongly with others of their age group,59 a phenomenon made

explicable by the fact that Gen Yers have grown up in a society characterized

by age segregation "to an extent unparalleled in the past."60 Over one half of

children born in the late 1970s will live in single-parent households for some

period of time before turning eighteen;61 one in four currently lives in a sin-

gle-parent household; three out of four have working mothers; and the average

teen spends less than thirty minutes per week alone with her/his father.62 There

simply have not been all that many members of earlier generations around to

influence Gen Yers, forcing them to rely on their peers. Rely upon peers, they

have: "Teachers report that compared with Gen Xers of a decade ago, today's

kids get along less well with teachers, but better with one another."63

Promoting opportunities for peer-learning is a wise strategy because Gen

Yers usually find peers more credible than teachers, than persons of earlier

generations, when it comes to determining what is worth paying attention to,

what is fun, and what is work.64 Gen Yers' trust in peers can thus help to miti-

gate two other characteristics of Gen Yers that can work against their benefit-

ing from active learning opportunities. First, Gen Yers tend to view education

negatively, as like work, "important for one's future" but "depressing and

dull."65 Active learning seems particularly like work because it "requires per-

sonal effort . . . it's hard,"66 and many Gen Yers "expect they will gain knowl-

edge simply by listening to what an expert has to say, just as they simply

expect to receive a product in the store simply by paying the price."67 Indeed,

Gen Yers have largely gotten good grades in school without doing much work,

and without developing an appropriate sense of workloads.68 By 1998, one

third of eighth-graders and one fourth of tenth-graders had A or A - averages,69

yet sixty-five percent of high school students said they are not trying very hard

and seventy-five percent indicated they would try harder if pushed.70 The 2000

208 INFORMATION LITERACY PROGRAMS: SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES

National Survey of Student Engagement similarly found that while sev-

enty-nine percent of first-year college students said their high schools ex-

pected them to study a "significant amount," fifty-five percent of them

reported spending only one hour or less studying outside of class for every

hour spent in class.71 Gen Yers are also very attuned to what they view as

"marketing" by members of earlier generations: "Teens readily reject false im-

ages. If a marketer is being dishonest, it will ring false to them. They have

highly sensitive B.S. detectors that just go off the charts if they're lied to."72

What this essentially means is that Gen Yers may be skeptical about their

teachers' valuations of anything, especially their teachers' valuations of work

as worth doing. When their peers can be made to see something as "fun," or as

work worth the effort, though, Gen Yers are significantly more receptive to it.

CONCLUSIONS

All of the changes described above were in the style of presenting materials,

not in the substance of materials presented. Students were asked to do and

learn the same things; they were just asked to do so in ways that corresponded

more closely to their learning style preferences and worldviews. Far from pan-

dering to learners' supposed academic deficiencies or personal laziness, this

approach sought to improve teaching by focusing upon learners' skills, atti-

tudes, and needs. "The aim of teaching any subject should be to enable the

learner to acquire an understanding of the structure of the subject being

taught,"73 but this cannot be done until material is made meaningful to learners

by being approached from and integrated into learners' schemata, their frame-

works of background knowledge and experience.74 Because materials must be

made meaningful to learners in order to be comprehensible by them, the "cru-

cial element in all good teaching/learning experiences" becomes the learners

themselves75?what they know, what their interests are, how they learn. The

real focus of the changes to teaching methods and materials described herein is

structuring the learning experience to (attempt to) guarantee the success of the

learners.76 Of course, correlation does not necessarily mean causation, and the

improvements in student performance that accompanied the changes in teach-

ing methods and materials described herein may be the result of chance. Or

perhaps consciously trying to be a good, effective teacher for Gen Y students

was in itself enough to prompt improvements in performance, whether by fo-

cusing the instructor more on teaching or by persuading the students that the

instructor really was trying to reach them. Changing one aspect of teaching

methods or materials (for example, incorporating more active learning) often

in itself brought other changes (for example, a greater focus on peer-learning).

Kate Manuel 209

This makes it virtually impossible to single out one of these changes as most

related to improvements in Gen Y's learning. Despite these uncertainties,

though, the author remains convinced that changing teaching methods did re-

sult in improvements in student performance in her classes, and that much can

be gained from teaching to learners' strengths and worldviews.

1. Mary Ellen Beck, "The ABC's of Gen X for Librarians," Information Out-

look 5, no. 2 (2001): 16-20.

2. Other terms used to denote this group include the Digital Generation, Net

Generation, Nintendo Generation, Generation 2000, Generation Next, Y2Kids,

Millenials, and Generation Y2K. One study suggests that today's teens find the Gener-

ation Y label problematic because it implies an extension of Generation X, a group they

view, by a two to one margin, as having a "negative reputation." This study reveals that

they prefer "millennials," a name they see as acknowledging "their technological supe-

riority without defining them too explicitly in those terms," Neil Howe and William

Strauss, Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation (New York: Vintage Books,

2000), 10-12. Nevertheless, the "Generation Y" label is here applied to those currently

living in the United States born between 1980 and 2000 because it is the term most

commonly used.

3. Currently, over 70.4 million people, approximately twenty-six percent of the

total U.S. population, are school-aged Gen Yers. Howe and Strauss, 74.

4. Beloit College, Beloit College's Class of 2003 Mindset List (2000).

5. "Like any social category (race, class, religion, or nationality), a generation

can allow plenty of individual exceptions and be fuzzy at the edges. . . . Not every

member will share it, of course, but every member will have to deal with it, willingly or

not, over a lifetime." Howe and Strauss, 41.

6. Many students, unfortunately, do not find information literacy courses and

skills, especially those fulfilling university requirements, motivating in their own right.

While some thirty percent of libraries now offer basic or discipline-specific informa-

tion literacy skills courses for academic credit, one study has found that students rank

credit courses as their least preferred means of getting library instruction. Jeanne R.

Davidson, "Faculty and Student Attitudes toward Credit Courses for Library Skills,"

College and Research Libraries 62, no. 2 (2001): 155-163. "Because they may see no

need for it, students may resent having to take a library course more than other required

courses." Mignon S. Adams and Jacquelyn M. Morris, Teaching Library Skills for Ac-

ademic Credit (Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press, 1985), 8.

7. In Fall 1998, CSUH had a total enrollment of 12,888 students, 770 of whom

were first-time first-year students and 1,462 of whom were new transfer students. Insti-

tutional Research and Analysis, California State University, Hayward, Most Re-

quested Census Information (2000).

8. Judith Faust, "Teaching Information Literacy in 50 Minutes a Week: The CSUH

Experience," Journal of Southern Academic and Special Librarianship 2, no. 3 (2001).

9. Howe and Strauss, 15.

10. Institutional Research.

210 INFORMATION LITERACY PROGRAMS: SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES

11. John Ritter, "Calif. Racial Data Shifts, Becomes First Big State with No Eth-

nic Majority," USA Today, 30 March 2001, A1.

12. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Barbara Schneider, Becoming Adult: How

Teenagers Prepare for the World of Work (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 88-90.

13. Howe and Strauss, 264. Gen Y spending seems to be escalating: Gen Yers

spent $94 billion in 1999, up $10 billion from 1997. Cristina Merrill, "The Ripple Ef-

fect Reaches Gen Y," American Demographics (1999).

14. Marcy Gordon, "Senate Rejects Credit Card Limits for Minors," San Fran-

cisco Chronicle, 14 March 2001, B4.

15. A survey of incoming first-year students at the University of California, Los

Angeles, found that a "record number"?one in four?reported "some" or a "very good"

likelihood of getting a full-time job while in college. Leo Reisberg, "Student Stress Is

Rising, Especially among Women: Annual Survey of Freshmen Also Finds Declines in

Drinking and Smoking," Chronicle of Higher Education 46, no. 21 (2000). Seventy per-

cent of all CSU students work, with one in three working at least thirty hours per week

while taking an average of 12 credits. One in four students also has children. California

State University, Visions, Plans, New Realities (Long Beach, CA: CSU, 1998), 7.

16. Howe and Strauss, 46.

17. Howe and Strauss, 7.

18. Elliot Soloway, "How the Nintendo Generation Learns," Communications

of the ACM 34, no. 9 (1991): 23-28. Hype over new or improved technologies per-

vades contemporary life and shapes expectations. People "are bombarded daily with

the possibilities of the Internet, multimedia CD-ROMs, interactive television, and dis-

tance learning . . . [They] may not always be computer literate, but you can bet they're

going to be technologically demanding." Cheryl LaGuardia, Michael Blake, Laura

Farwell, Caroline M. Kent, and Ed Tallent, Teaching the New Library: A

How-To-Do-It Manual for Planning and Designing Instructional Programs (New

York: Neal-Schuman, 1996), 27. cf. Kimberley Robles Smith, "Great Expectations:

Or, Where Do They Get These Ideas?" Reference and User Services Quarterly 40, no.

1 (2001, 27-31).

19. According to this same survey, eighty-nine percent of teens claimed to use

computers several times a week, and sixty one percent surfed the Internet. "Teenagers

and Technology: A Newsweek Poll Shows Familiarity and Optimism," Newsweek

129, no. 17 (1997), 86-87. According to more recent numbers, seventy-five to ninety

percent of teenagers have a computer at home, and fifty percent have Internet access at

home. Howe and Strauss, 171.

20. It is fundamentally true that "despite their high opinions of their own abili-

ties, students [are] quite unskilled in research techniques that effectively use Internet

resources." Deborah J. Grimes and Carl H. Boening, "Worries about the Web: A Look

at Student Use of Web Resources," College and Research Libraries 62, no. 1 (2001):

12. Because the "Internet makes readily available so much information, . . . students

think research is far easier than it really is." Bradley L. Schaffner, "Electronic Re-

sources: A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," College and Research Libraries 62, no. 3

(2001): 243.

21. Philip J. Calvert, "Web-Based Misinformation in the Context of Higher Edu-

cation," Asian Libraries 8, no. 3 (1999): 93-91. Another study found that even students

who rated themselves as novice Web searchers expressed complete satisfaction with

the Web as an information source, and nearly all had confidence that they could find

needed information on the Web and that the information would be accurate and correct.

Kate Manuel 211

Bradley P. Tolppanen, "A Survey of World Wide Web Use by Freshman English Stu-

dents: Results and Implications for Bibliographic Instruction," Internet Reference Ser-

vices Quarterly 4, no. 4 (1999): 43-53. In yet another study, eighty-five percent of

students were found to rate the accuracy of web resources as excellent. Susan Davis

Herring, "Faculty Acceptance of the World Wide Web for Student Research," College

and Research Libraries 62, no. 3 (2001): 251-258.

22. In Fall 2000, information equity in relation to the Web was also brought

within the realm of students' experience, thanks to insights gained from a presentation

by Angelynn King at LOEX of the West. King used "Hobson's Choice" [Web page];

available on the World Wide Web at http://www.realchangenews.org/hobson_

intro.html to introduce her students to the difficulties that a homeless person?in the

various situations described in the "game" on this site?would have in accessing infor-

mation from the Internet or libraries. Angelynn King, Disconnected: Teaching Infor-

mation Equity to Undergraduates (Unpublished manuscript, 2001).

23. David W. Allan and Lisa A. Baures, "B.I. Instructional Design: Applying

Modes of Consciousness Theory," in The Impact of Technology on Library Instruction

(Ann Arbor, MI: Pierian Press, 1995), 78.

24. Lisa K. Miller, "Cooperative Learning Users Groups: Modeling Coopera-

tion," in New Ways of "Learning the Library"?and Beyond (Ann Arbor, MI: Pierian

Press, 1996), 127.

25. cf. Jamie F. Baker, "Give It to Them the Way They Want It," The Masthead

51, no. 3 (1999): 21; Bradley Dilger, "The Ideology of Ease," Journal of Electronic

Publishing 6, no. 1 (2000); Alexandra Rand, "Technology Transforms Training," HR

Focus 73, no. 11 (1996): 11-14; Lorie Roth, "Educating the Cut-and-Paste Genera-

tion," Library Journal 124, no. 18 (1999): 42; and Don Tapscott, Growing Up Digital:

The Rise of the Net Generation (New York: McGraw Hill, 1999), 62. Indeed, books are

now being designed to appeal to Gen Yers by imitating the graphics and layouts of

Web sites and computer games. Susan Dodge, "Tech-Savvy Teens Still Read Books,"

Chicago-Sun Times, 15 February 2000.

26. Patricia Senn Breivik, Student Learning in the Information Age (Phoenix, AZ:

Oryx Press, 1998), 27. Students' affinities for visual over textual information also reflect

their preferences for "ease" and "speed." cf. Dilger. Many Gen Yers "perceive reading as

`slow, painful, and torturous,'" while TV is described as "fast and exciting, with chang-

ing visuals and colors that kept them awake." Sharon Curcio, "Finding Modern Ways To

Teach Today's Youth," Corrections Today 57, no. 2 (1995): 28-30. Indeed, seventy-one

percent of teens say they "would prefer to talk into their computers rather than type."

Wendy Murray Zoba, Generation 2K: What Parents and Others Need To Know about the

Millennials (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 44.

27. Jakob Nielsen, "How Users Read on the Web," Alertbox (1997).

28. Kirk McElhearn, "Click Me (Or, the Ubiquity of Hypertext)," TidBITS no.

534 (2000). cf. Zoba, 49.

29. Herbert R. Kohl, "I Won't Learn from You"?and Other Thoughts on Creative

Maladjustment (New York: New Press, 1994), 6. cf. R. W. Burniske, "In Defense of

Computer Illiteracy: The Virtues of Not Learning," Teachers College Record (2000).

30. An added benefit of the visual directions was their accessibility to students

whose native language was not English. "For students with limited English profi-

ciency, having to take performance tests in English automatically puts them at a major

disadvantage." Geneva Gay, "Educational Equality for Students of Color," in Multi-

cultural Education: Issues and Perspectives (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1997), 214.

212 INFORMATION LITERACY PROGRAMS: SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES

31. Roth; cf. Jeremy Rifkin, The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism

Where All of Life Is a Paid for Experience (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher|Putnam, 2000),

187; Tapscott, 142.

32. Curcio. cf. Allan and Baures, 77.

33. Graphic Organizers (No Date).

34. Russell Freeland, "WonderWorks," Data Based Advisor 8, no. 3 (1990):

146-148.

35. Rifkin.

36. Baker; Rand; Tapscott, 10.

37. Mel Elfin, "The College of Tomorrow," U.S. News & World Report, 113,

no. 12 (1992): 110-112.

38. Victor Dwyer, "A Crash Course in Reality 101: Generation Y Asks Univer-

sities To Deliver for Their Futures," Maclean's 109, no. 48 (1996), 50-55. This article

also quotes the president of the University of Manitoba Students' Union as saying,

"The university has got to learn some priorities. It has to zero in on what it does well,

what it doesn't, and what exactly its tuition-paying clients need to survive in the out-

side world."

39. Another benefit of giving students choice is the fact that "treating different in-

dividuals identically is inherently discriminatory. Their differentness demands vari-

ability in treatment . . . sameness of educational resources for diverse individuals and

groups does not constitute comparability of quality or opportunity." Gay, 196, 211.

40. Michael Garry, "Training for the Nintendo Generation," Progressive Grocer

75, no. 4 (1996): 87-90.

41. Freeland; Rifkin, 187.

42. Howe and Strauss, 93.

43. Garry; Tapscott, 147-148.

44. Howe and Strauss, 257. The outlook for Gen Yers varies, with some question-

ing whether young people who grew up in front of computer screens will have the ex-

tended attention spans necessary to form coherent frames of reference for

understanding and adapting to the world around them; others suggest that Gen Yers

will free up the human consciousness to be more playful, flexible, and even transient in

order to accommodate fast-and ever-changing realities. Rifkin, 12-13.

45. Baker; Roth; Tapscott, 73.

46. Rifkin, 21.

47. Kipp Cheng, "Setting Their Sites on Generation `Y,'" Mediaweek 9, no. 31

(1999): 46.

48. Patricia Senn Breivik, Planning the Library Instruction Program (Chicago:

American Library Association, 1982), 92. cf. Eileen E. Allen, "Active Learning and

Teaching: Improving Postsecondary Library Instruction," The Reference Librarian no.

51/52 (1995): 95.

49. Ruth V. Small, "Designing Motivation into Library and Information Skills In-

struction," School Library Media Quarterly Online (1998).

50. Tapscott, 87.

51. Small.

52. Breivik, Student Learning, 39.

53. Soloway; Rand.

54. Breivik, Student Learning, 24. cf. Allen, 92, who writes that "Lecture meets

the needs of only a portion of highly self directed individuals who learn well by listen-

ing and reading."

Kate Manuel 213

55. Miller, 127.

56. Garry.

57. Small.

58. As Drueke, points out, some theorists of active learning claim that real active

learning must involve acting on material things and social collaboration. Jeanetta

Drueke, "Active Learning in the University Instruction Classroom," Research Strat-

egies 10, no. 2 (1992): 78.

59. Diana Bagnall, "The Y Factor," The Bulletin with Newsweek 117, no. 6165

(1999): 14-20.

60. Csikszentmihalyi and Schneider, 14.

61. Csikszentmihalyi and Schneider, 14.

62. Howe and Strauss, 131.

63. Howe and Strauss, 181.

64. Academic librarians have begun utilizing peer-tutoring and-advising more in

recent years to reach these Gen Yers. Bruce Harley, Megan Dreger, and Patricia

Knobloch, "The Postmodern Condition: Students, the Web, and Academic Library

Services," Reference Services Review 29, no. 1 (2001): 23-32; Elizabeth Blakesley

Lindsay, "Undergraduate Students as Peer Instructors: One Way to Expand Library In-

struction and Reference Services," LOEX News 27, no. 4 (2000): 7, 13.

65. Csikszentmihalyi and Schneider, 14. Polls show that teens like school less

with each passing grade-level while simultaneously accepting it more as necessary for

their futures. Howe and Strauss, 162. Gen Yers are particularly fond of seeing them-

selves as players not workers, as creative not industrious. Rifkin, 187.

66. Breivik, Student Learning, 7.

67. Breivik, Student Learning, 6.

68. Unrealistically high expectations could themselves be said to characterize

Gen Yers. Three in five of today's twelve-to-seventeen-year-olds think they could be

elected president some day. Howe and Strauss, 230. Eighty percent expect to be profes-

sionals. Csikszentmihalyi and Schneider, 4-5. Over fifteen percent expect to be doctors

or lawyers, occupations currently held by only slightly over one percent of the popula-

tion. Csikszentmihalyi and Schneider, 45. They expect to earn $75,000 by the age of

thirty; as the actual median earnings of a thirty-year old in 1999 were $27,000, the in-

flation rate would have to reach 278% for Gen Yers to realize this figure. Howe and

Strauss, 318. What form Gen Yers' reaction to the inevitable frustration of these expec-

tations will take is as yet unknown. Cf. Zoba, 52.

69. Howe and Strauss, 184.

70. Howe and Strauss, 162.

71. "National Survey of Student Engagement," The College Student Report

(2001).

72. Cheng; cf. Garry; Andrew Marlatt, "Yen for E-tail," Internet World 5, no. 26

(1999): 39; Tapscott, 197.

73. Mary I. Piette, "Library Instruction: Principles, Theories, Connections, and

Challenges," The Reference Librarian no. 51/52 (1995): 78.

74. Melvina Azar Dame, Serving Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Stu-

dents: Strategies for the School Library Media Specialist (New York: Neal-Schuman,

1993), 16.

75. Breivik, Planning the Library Instruction Program, 54.

76. cf. Breivik, Planning the Library Instruction Program, 55.

214 INFORMATION LITERACY PROGRAMS: SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES

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