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This study assesses first-year international students as they engage in the research process through the completion of concept maps that precede database searches. Librarians assessed concept maps of international students completed prior to information literacy instruction to better understand the difficulties they experienced defining research topics and identifying keywords and alternatives. The results of this assessment provide a deeper understanding of the challenges first-year international students face with creating search strategies. Ultimately, this study resulted in more meaningful relationships between librarians and English as a second language (ESL) instructors, and effective adaptations to ESL library instruction.  \nKeywords: international students; library instruction; research process  \nAvery, S. (2017) . Setting them up for success: Assessing a pre-research assignment for firstyear international students. Communications in Information Literacy, 11(2), 324-338.  \nCopyright for articles published in Communications in Information Literacy is retained by the author(s). Author(s) also extend to Communications in Information Literacy the right to redistribute this article via other scholarly resources and bibliographic databases. This extension allows the authors'copyrighted content to be included in some databases that are distributed and maintained by for-profit companies. All other rights of redistribution are licensed by Communications in Information Literacy under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BYNC-SA 4 .0) .  \nSetting Them Up for Success: Assessing a Pre-Research Assignment for First-Year International Students  \nIntroduction  \nIn the ten-year span from 2005 to 2015 the number of international students at institutions of higher learning in the United States grew from 526,000 students to nearly 975,000 (Institute of International Education, 2016) . International students arrive in the United States with different backgrounds and educational experiences, presenting challenges for the institutions they attend. Defining the role the academic library will play presents many questions. How can libraries contribute to the academic success of international students? Are they providing students meaningful learning experiences? How can libraries measure their impact? As librarians work with international students, they must “cope in an understanding fashion with the reality that foreign students possess a different set of needs than traditional American students”(Shaffer, 2010, p. 110) .  \nIn fall semester 2015 there were more than 10,000 international students enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC); more than 5,400 of these were undergraduates. The undergraduate international students at UIUC come from diverse backgrounds: the largest group of students comes from China (3,070), followed by South Korea (697), and India (485) . Their majors are wide ranging. Programs with the greatest numbers include electrical and computer engineering (665), mathematics (514), and more than 300 each in the Division of General Studies, accountancy, economics, and computer science. An international student population of this size necessitates extensive programming and support that reaches beyond the classroom. Tasks that can be daunting for students who grew up and attended high school in the United States present greater difficulties for international students who encounter them in both a new culture and language.  \nThis study, which took place in the Undergraduate Library at the UIUC, provides an indepth exa","cbCaitt7nv1P8Kar","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaitt7nv1P8Kar","pdf",195256,15,"English","# Abstract\n# Introduction\n## International student context and library roles\n## Study setting and approach\n# Literature Review","[{\"question\":\"What assignment did students complete before database searching, and why was it used?\",\"answer\":\"Students completed concept maps before database searches and information literacy instruction. Librarians used these concept maps to assess readiness and understand how students defined topics and selected keywords.\"},{\"question\":\"Which difficulties did the study focus on regarding research strategies?\",\"answer\":\"The study focused on challenges first-year international students faced in developing search strategies, especially identifying research topics and choosing keywords and alternative terms.\"},{\"question\":\"How did the study influence librarian collaboration and ESL instruction?\",\"answer\":\"The results led to more meaningful relationships between librarians and ESL instructors and supported effective adaptations to ESL library instruction.\"}]","Setting Them Up for Success - Assessing a Pre-Research Assignment for First-Year International Students | PDF",1792087968,38]