Enhancing Information Literacy Using Bernard Lonergan's Generalized Empirical Method: A Three-year Case Study in a First Year Biology Course

The purpose of this study is to illustrate how a team of three faculty from different disciplines sought to increase select information literacy outcomes of first year biology students using Bernard J. Lonergan's cognitional theory, the Generalized Empirical Method. The majority of students entering college have little experience in finding, retrieving, understanding, evaluating, incorporating, and citing scholarly sources in their scientific research papers. One factor may be a lack of library instruction and research experience in high school. Even for those with prior instruction, transitioning from high school level assignments to college level research can be a formidable challenge. In addition, few students understand the system of scholarly publishing or the structure of scientific information. They do not grasp the relationship between articles, journals, and library databases or the difference between searching a scientific database and using search engines such as Google.