Student research assignments--what do we want them to learn

This is not a rhetorical question...the editorial musings from a librarian at Princeton (Inside Higher Ed, April 13) on the seemingly changeless questions and confessions she gets from students doing research assignments should make us all think about how we can help students address the underlying information gaps and misconceptions. She offers suggestions for both departmental faculty as well as librarians to help students learn more from the process. I also loved her acronym for the way most students approach research based assignments: "WIGWAM research (Wikipedia – Internet – Google – Without Anything More"