History and Scholarly Research: A Blended Approach

A structured research assignment is often the culmination of most social sciences and humanities courses within higher education. These assignments tend to be paired with 1-2 library instruction sessions that take place during the course of a semester. During these time-limited sessions, students are instructed by academic librarians on matters of scholarly research and are prepared to effectively approach their respective research assignments. While library instruction is both beneficial and necessary to the success of student research, conducting such instruction within a limited amount of time can hinder an academic librarian’s ability to ensure that their students attain all scholarly research learning outcomes. When transitioning to online learning, these library instructions are often allotted even less time, reduced to tutorials, or simply eliminated. Such measures curb student online learning and diminish the quality of their research-based assignments. In addressing such issues, I have redesigned my online history courses to provide comprehensive and blended research instruction which runs concurrently with existing history content modules. Through the course of a semester, my online learners will successfully meet their history and scholarly research learning objectives simultaneously and progressively.

A well-constructed research assignment requires a process. Researchers must adhere to multiple steps that include, but might not be limited to, the following:

• The formulation of a viable and valid research question.
• The proficiency of scholarly databases,
• The evaluation of sources.
• The examination of multiple voices.
• The proper citation of sources.

As alluded to previously, these processes are often taught by academic librarians who are allotted a limited amount of time within a specific course. These time constraints can pose difficulties in ensuring that learners are provided a comprehensive lesson and assessment. In my online history course design, the scholarly research process is weaved into existing course content modules thus providing research instruction that spans the course of a semester. History and scholarly research are presented side-by-side to provide enhanced instruction while demonstrating the inter-connectivity of the two disciplines. Here is an example of a course module’s topics and learning objectives:

Topics covered:

• Capital & Labor
• The West
• Formulating viable research topics/questions.

Learning Objectives:

Upon completion of this module, you will be able to:

• Examine how capital and labor became paramount leading up to the end of the 19th century, and how their proliferation impacted individuals and society as a whole.
• Identify America's reasons for westward expansion and evaluate the impact of these actions.
• Formulate research topics/questions that are viable and appropriate for historical research.

Aside from Capital & Labor and The West, this particular module addresses an initial and crucial step in the research process: formulating a research topic or question. All three of the topics in this module are aligned with their own specific content and assessments, but the research-related topic (formulating viable research topics/questions) is presented through the lens of Capital & Labor and The West. Student inquiries and curiosities – which are paramount to the formulation of research topics/questions – arise from the study of Capital & Labor and The West. Rather than address history and the scholarly research process individually, this module and others like it adhere the two together.

The structure and integrity of this course design is maintained through a series of sequential folders containing readings, resources, and several short assessments. All content is found within the weekly modules, and all modules are given a similar structure to maintain consistency.
This course design was first implemented in the Fall 2020 semester, and a subsequent implementation is taking place during the Spring 2021 semester. Initial assessments have shown an overall improvement in the quality of student research paper assignments and their subsequent grades. In addition, the insertion of scholarly research instruction into online history courses has had no negative effects on the existing assessments of history-based learning.

This course was designed from my perspectives as an academic librarian, a professor of history, and an online educator. I strongly believe that this course design can act as a template of sorts for professionals in various disciplines wishing to collaborate with academic librarians to implement extended library instruction within their existing courses.