Do Students Frown on Information Literacy?

I'd like to follow up on my last entry.  After 4+ weeks students finally submitted their assignments in the class on how to find physical and thermodynamic properties of substances.  What is their reaction to an outsider coming into their class to give a lecture?  Would their attitude be different if their professor gave the information literacy lecture.  I find that students do well on the assignment even after procrastinating.  Perhaps I have made the assignment too easy.  I do think that students should gain experience in using free and subscription databases to find information.  However, it is inevitable that they will just Google to find the information they need.  Are they interested in learning new skills or just to get their grade and finish it?

Why Do Students Fail to Submit Assignments?

Again any opinions expressed here are my own and are not meant to criticize any specific institutions or individuals.

For many years I have taught a class on how to find physical and thermodynamic properties of chemical substances.  I give an assignment that should take no more than 2 hours to complete and give a deadline of 2 weeks to complete it.  This semester only 3 of 25 students completed this assignment in 2 weeks?  Why is the rate of completion so low this semester compared to others?  A few weeks ago, we could blame the snow days that disrupted the flow of the semester.  This is a class given to chemistry and chemical engineering majors.  Why is there so much apathy and disinterest?

Likewise, I have taught a few sections of the Research Road Maps which are information literacy sessions given to freshmen students taking humanites courses.  Likewise the submission rate is low, bt more than 12% in the chemistry class that I gave.

I guess I am using this blog to vent.