Tag Archives: Questioning Authority

In the journal entry “Who’s in Charge here? Authority, Authoritativeness, and the Undergraduate Researcher”, Meszaros describes different factors involving Authority between teachers, librarians, and their students.  One factor she speaks of is what a majority of students think of their faculty members within their school. Meszaros proposes her thoughts about undergraduate students who turn to their peers, or other faculty members rather than a helpful librarian for assistance in research. She continues to explain the different type of authority that undergraduates typically ascribe to faculty which is called “administrative authority”. Administrative authority is defined as “one has by virtue of occupying a position”.One’s moral behavior determines one’s occupancy. When students “listen”, they do so largely because they believe they must in order to receive a satisfactory grade” (pg.6, para.4).When students pay attention to their professors, it is largely because they are afraid for their grades and they want to get a good grade. Students don’t necessarily listen to their professors because of their expertise, but because of the control they have on their grades.

Meszaros also mentions this in her journal entry, “Their adherence to faculty instructions is not necessarily based on a recognition of their professor’s “cognitive authority,” defined by Wilson (1991, p. 259), as an authority based on expertise” (pg. 6, para.4).  Students only adhere to their teachers directions not because they care of their background and skillfulness or who they are in general but, because at the end of the day they are just trying to pass.  This also ties into how many students do not go to librarians for help. 

A different type of authority that should be recognized is called “cognitive authority”, which is an authority based on expertise. Patrick Wilson developed the term cognitive authority and explains “people construct knowledge in two different ways: based on their first-hand experience or on what they have learned second-hand from others.” What people learn first-hand depends on the stock of ideas they bring to the interpretation and understanding of their encounters with the world. People primarily depend on others for ideas as well as for information outside the range of direct experience. Meszaros believes librarians should teach students “respect and passion for cognitive authority” as well as show students how to formulate opinions about knowledge and who’s behind it as opposed to just settling for whatever students can find first. Because students view people of authority (professors) as their source of knowledge , they believe they are reliable because of the degree, the title the professors holds, therefore any one with authority should have the skills, “expertise” to rely on them most. Students need to be taught how to evaluate and use information. Students should question who is providing them with their information because whoever is giving them this information may or may not know a lot about a certain topic. There’s a difference between memorizing information and understanding information.