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INFOLIT LAND
The Robotic Researcher
by William Badke
| Student researcher robots struggle. They don’t understand
why what worked last time is utterly failing now. |
When I wrote “Method and the Wildly Creative Researcher” in my September 2025 Computers in Libraries column, I chronicled the woes of students who, out of anxiety and a sense that research demands outsized creativity, failed to meet the goals of their research assignments. This column is closer to the opposite. It considers the student who craves a set of steps to do the research but fails to grasp the nature of the process and the developmental skills required.
The spectacular Project Information Literacy (PIL; now closed after 17 years) found that students tended to stick to tried-and-true methods to find resources through a very constricted set of tools. A 2009 PIL report stated: “Overall, the findings suggest that respondents appear to be driven by familiarity and habit” (“Lessons Learned: How College Students Seek Information in the Digital Age”; projectinfolit.org/docs/information-seeking-habits/pil_info-seeking-habits_2009-12-01.pdf).
Robots function on the basis of inputs provided to them by their creators. Even AI-driven robots are limited by the instructions they are given and the sources of information they can access. They are unable to break out into innovative action or even to learn new skills except in a limited way. If robots compete in sports games, for example, their range of actions is not huge, and they are as likely to fall over as to show prowess.
Let’s consider the robotic student researcher who is consumed with the thought, “I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do.” That student will be characterized by confusion, procrastination, and a strong desire to know the steps to follow. My own patterns of instruction support robots by giving them a procedural framework to follow, but the robot tends not to grow beyond the basic steps.
The problems of the robot
A robotic student researcher first has a conceptual problem. If you picture research as “five easy steps to get from topic to completed paper,” you are going to think of the whole process as both rote and unchangeable from topic to topic. The problem is that research topics tend to mess with method.
For example, if I want to create a paper on the reasons for Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, I might easily find some sources that delineate those reasons. With this initial success, I move on to a sociology paper on the problem of crime in large cities. Now, I’m in new territory, where multiple voices are claiming that crime reduction is best accomplished with better policing; no, better social programs; no, gun control; no, troops in the streets. Who’s right? How do I, as a robotic researcher, find the answer? I’ll probably just (robotically) end up describing the various views and concluding with a statement that the experts need to get on the same page.
Beyond the conceptual problem, robotic researchers have no expectation of growth in their research abilities. They take the same approach to every project (which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t), assuming that there is only one method to follow. For those robots who do change methods with each project—and some do—they are essentially rearranging their steps rather than moving beyond their original basic pattern.
This makes robotic researchers, I believe, more susceptible to asking AI to do their work for them. (Don’t hold me to this, because it’s just a best guess.) If I see a research project as a task to be done by following a rigid set of steps, the idea that doing research in order to develop my skills is alien. A research project is a deliverable, a turned-in project, not a means of growth. If AI helps me deliver, I will use it and hope the prof doesn’t find out. If, however, I see each assignment as a means to build ever more sophisticated skills, I may be less likely to enlist AI.
Finally, for the robotic researcher, projects are boring or frightening, things to be avoided, if possible, and done as quickly as possible if avoidance is impossible. Research is a grind. It’s a tribulation. It’s something profs use to make students’ lives miserable. Any excitement of the quest is lost in the tedium of doing the steps, finding the sources, and getting the blooming thing finished.
I tell my students that research is fun, using analogies of the grand quest, the exciting exploration, or the solving of a mystery. But so many of them simply don’t see it. I remember once overexplaining a point of research to a student. He gave me a strange look and said, “You really love this stuff.” He didn’t love it, and his look told me he thought I was an oddball. That’s a shame, because the robotic researcher loses out on the joy and is left with the tedium, the fear, or both.
Professors Transforming
the robotic researcher
Academia bears a considerable amount of blame for the trauma of robotic student researchers. Many research assignments focus on delivery of a product to be assessed. Rather than guiding their process, professors lay out what to include in the product: critical thinking, scholarly sources, great citations, and so on. This leads to the impression that, like making a casserole, you just need to throw in the required elements, and you will have a product.
I rarely hear professors speaking about student research process development or building student research skills through their projects. Profs want something high quality that they can grade. Learning the process is up to students. They will get better with practice. But this kind of thinking is death for the robotic researcher, who just wants a set of steps to follow.
Since every project has its own challenges, and each requires lateral thinking and iteration, robotic students are unable to adapt. They are taking the same recipe, plugging in different ingredients, and following the same instructions to turn ingredients into a product. Then they wonder why their recipe failed. Unless their professor guides them in expanded processes, there will be no growth and a ton of frustration.
For professors, in an era in which mere information is a cheap commodity and the building of research and critical thinking skills is vitally important for all citizens, simply asking students to deliver more information products is not enough. I believe that, educationally, the process is more important than the product. Advanced skill development needs to be the paramount goal of every research project, and professors need to engage in that development through formative assessment, second chances, and an emphasis on student research growth.
Librarians Transforming
the robotic researcher
Librarians tend not to have enough time with a student to contribute much to research ability development. The standard reference interview calls for quick solutions to specific questions. The one-shot, as well, is usually too hurried to enable students to learn the processes they need.
That said, librarians do have opportunities. For reference interviews, I generally ask, “What is your goal? What is your research question?” It’s surprising how many students don’t have an answer for me, but this is a chance for me to walk them through the process. I ask what the student has done on the project to this point and detail other options available. My purpose is to help students break out of the restrictions their robotic tendencies have put on them.
For one-shots, provide some examples that demand different approaches and lateral thinking. Emphasize that research smarts are much more important than canned methods. Show them how breaking out of set patterns is the path to more skilled discovery and a better product.
Help students to grasp the demands of the disciplines that guide their research. A historical primary source is usually of no value for a psychology paper. Disciplinary thinking opens up the process and defies robotic activity. (For more on this, see my LibGuide, “Disciplinary Enculturation—Theory and Praxis”; libguides.twu.ca/DisciplinaryEnculturation.)
Librarians need to recognize that building creativity in robots is a frequent goal of our work. We need to learn how to spot robotic thinking and help students break out. Every research project is different. The things that worked last time could sabotage you this time. We can help students follow a basic structure—research design, search based on terminology from a research question, evaluation of results, and so on—but look for ways to make this structure work in new situations.
Transforming the Robot
So how do we increase flexibility of our student robots and their lateral thinking skills? Part of the solution is to train them in a new pattern of thinking that reflects their desire for ordered steps but moves them beyond rote patterns. If they spend time on research design, especially the development of solid research questions, then they have a platform for progress in their projects.
The research question sets a goal, but it does more. First, it suggests the elements that the student will need to address in order to do the project. This can be enhanced if they use the research question to develop a preliminary outline, even if it is only three or four points. Second, the research question provides search terminology. Third, the question helps the researcher see what is important, leading to the realization of a clear goal. Learning how to optimize research questions is not robotic. It requires analytical thinking and a recognition that each project is different.
Beyond the question, robotic researchers need to think. That seems obvious, but what I mean is that a robotic formula often stands in place of truly puzzling through what you are doing. Training students to walk themselves through their process by clarifying their goals and brainstorming options to achieve at every stage can break them out of the machine-like approach that stifles their progress. You, in your information literacy instruction, can choose and model this kind of thinking at every stage of research.
Student researcher robots struggle. They don’t understand why what worked last time is utterly failing now. They want someone to tell them what to do. They complain that they did the steps, but they are not finding what they need. Overall, they have a lambs-to-the-slaughter level of despair and anxiety. Their low grades confirm to them that they are just not good at research.
We have a chance to help them break out and be humans rather than robots. |
