Primary Sources as a Tool for Delivering Your Student Success Goals

By Holly Francis (Senior Marketing Manager, AM)

Student success is a common phrase across campus encompassing a broad range of factors from academic achievement and retention to personal development and career paths. Although it can mean different things in different institutional contexts, broadly speaking a focus on developing intellectual curiosity and a lifelong passion for learning in every student through their college experience sits at the heart of it.

A strategy of student success looks to ensure that not only do students graduate, but they do so with the skills, knowledge and experience to succeed beyond the walls of the college campus.

At AM, we believe that at the heart of education is the freedom to think critically. Harnessing the latest technologies, we support student success by reimagining primary sources to empower current and future generations to challenge, analyse and debate.

Introducing students across all disciplines to primary sources during their degree experience can help foster not only a deeper understanding of historical events but also increase student engagement with a variety of materials available through the library, and allow students to build those vital critical thinking skills. Having an understanding and knowledge of primary source literacy provides the tools to locate, interpret, evaluate and analyse data and content incorporating many forms of literacy such as informational, statistical, visual, aural, and tactile.

In the articles gathered for this issue, we’ve looked at how primary sources have been used as a basis for support of student success at different institutions and with different approaches. How students are supported and guided in their approach to primary sources for research can transform their learning outcomes.

From technology supporting archival professionals in Ukraine, to teaching with records from the National Archives, UK, each article takes a different approach, yet all have the same goal: To enrich the learning experience of the student and equip them with the broader skills needed for a lifetime of success.