Student psychosocial and cognitive development: theory to practice in academic libraries

Academic librarians have long been concerned with facilitating the teaching of information seeking and critical thinking skills among the undergraduate student population. In this sense, librarians are very much interested in facilitating student development. This article briefly describes the two major theories of student development, places these theories in the context of academic librarianship, and offers suggestions on how librarians can apply (map) these theories to practice when interacting with students. The goal is to enhance programmatic library interventions in order to further develop students’ information research skills.