Question and

enquire: taking a

critical pathway to

understand our

users

Sheila Webber Sheffield University iSchool

Centre for Information Literacy Research

IFLA Satellite Conference

Singapore, August 2013

Things to aim for

• Support and challenge students to become lifelong

reflective learners with deep critical information

behaviour (IB)

• Support citizens/ workers as if they were, or aspired

to be, lifelong reflective learners with deep critical IB

• Reflect on, & develop, our own IB and IL and be

willing to challenge assumptions (including our own)

Avoid turning people into strategic and surface

dualists who have no inner resources to develop

their information literacy through life

Dualism – see things as right or

wrong, and look for an authority (e.g.

teacher) or signal of authority (e.g.

that it’s a textbook) to tell him/her

which is which

Identifying what is

required by

marker/examiner

and focusing on

that

Memorising,

Skim reading

Approaches to study

Not an intention to

understand

And to avoid…

Marton et al. 1984; Newble and Entwistle, 1986; Perry, 1981.

• Saying “no Wikipedia” or “you‟re using Wikipedia

wrongly” rather than having discussions & exercises on

how to use, or encouraging people to contribute tips

• Encouraging skimming to identify keywords or pick out

the relevant bits (the bits that seem to match the task)

from an article

• Encouraging a strategic focus (do good searching to

get a good mark in this class) and expecting students to

transfer skills to other contexts

Things that do not shout “deep critical”

“What students do naturally is ask awkward questions

and actually what happens over a period of time is, is

it gets schooled out of them, you don‟t ask those

questions, the teacher told you not to do it so you

don‟t do it. Why, because teacher knows”

(Vice Principal, British Sixth Form College, from our Deep

Critical Information project

http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/webber-ford-2013)

• As an educator – I see it as my job to support people in becoming committed, and deep learners: this is not easy for educator or learner & I don‟t always succeed ….

• In the workplace – employers certainly don‟t want shallow dualists, and their business will thrive more if employees are capable of a deep and committed approach – but creating an environment to develop critical creative workers is not easy!

PS But I also know it‟s useful having a strategic approach when you need to!

Obviously,

I think information

literacy can help

you along the

pathway

“Information literacy is the

adoption of appropriate

information behaviour to

identify, through whatever

channel or medium, information

well fitted to information needs,

leading to wise and ethical use

of information in society.”

Johnston &

Webber (2003)

International IL Logo:

http://www.infolitglobal.info/

“Information Behavior is the totality of human behavior in relation to sources and channels of information,

including both active and passive information seeking, and information use.” Wilson, 2000

The information literate

person is in context past present future

past - knowledge, skills, behaviours,

attitudes from previous experience

present – different aspects of their lives call

for different information literacy: but you

can‟t assume transfer between them

future – personal, citizen, worker needs

Information literate

person

Information economy: •Law

•Changes in media

•Pricing etc

Organisational culture: •Mission; Values; Norms

•Management style; ways of working

•Information strategy

Personal goals,

relationships, habits,

special needs

Local & national

culture & society

Technical changes

The information literate person in a changing

information culture and society

Webber & Johnston, 2013

Based on Webber and Johnston, 2000

Recalling & reviewing past experiences

Getting people to make conscious efforts to

connect their behaviour in different

contexts (different classes, gaming,

solving a workplace problem…)

Practising and envisioning future needs &

roles

Working with individuals so they can

identify their own needs • Thinking about changes in your life

• Thinking what this means in terms of

information/literacy for you and others

• Thinking about what might be vital and what is not

• Working out what you need to do, what you need

others to do, what you need to learn, what you need

to change

• Underpinning this is my belief that people need to

have an awareness of information literacy in their

lives, not infolit-hidden-in-something-else

Quotation from interview for research by Dr Shahd Salha

Working with individuals so they

understand their information behaviour • Seeing any value in information literacy “tests” as

being in how the results are discussed, reflected on

and acted on by the participants themselves

• Introducing research models of IB as tools for self-

diagnosis and discussion of implications e.g.

– Ones I use: Erdelez‟ (1999) information encountering; Ellis‟

(1993) model of information seeking; Kuhlthau‟s ISP (1991)

– Which animal are you? (exercise at Sheffield Hallam

University; Borg et al, 2009)

Students recall an information search and identify which of 8 animal /insect types they most resembled e.g. squirrels rely on information they have stored away

Finding out more about people through research e.g.

• Studies of students‟ information behaviour:

– Ethnographic study in libraries in Egypt, Sharjah, Lebanon

and France (Click et al., 2012)

– ERIAL project at Illinois, http://www.erialproject.org/,

including ethnographic toolkit for librarians

– New Zealand observational study of shelf-browsing

(Timpany et al., 2013)

– Diaries and interviews of digital/library use (Connaway et

al., 2012)

Connections and reflections in undertaking

research

• “The process itself builds strategic relationships” (with

participants and key stakeholders) (Green, 2013)

• “I came to understand that if we are less judgmental

about our students' desire to dig into their research the

way we think they should, and understand what it is

they are coping with, we could be much more effective

service providers.”

Quoting the Head of Reference Services, University of

Illinois at Chicago (Green, 2013)

Poster in my flickr stream at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23396182@N00/7347825152/

Numpty (Scottish) – a

person of little sense or

intelligence

At all stages and ages there

are people are using &

combining information in all

types of channel and media

to meet their needs

Don‟t just

look at

digital, ask

people about

the way they

combine and

move

between

channels

Research shows (sensible)

patterns of use developing

“I don‟t understand what the word means, I‟ll go onto Google and say ok, whatever I first find, read it. Does that make any sense? And gradually my head works quite logically, it starts sifting facts into order. One I think I‟ve got a fair understanding of something I‟ll then check it on Lexis Nexis – go and look for the cases and journal articles”

(final year Law student from our Deep Critical Information project)

“a tween might

consult a peer, who

recommends a

Web site, which is

vetted by a parent,

and ultimately they

together consult a

store professional.”

(Myers et al., 2009:

317)

Concluding ideas

• Need strategic whole-institution (or whole nation!)

change to make messages and approaches

consistent for learners (e.g. Bill Johnston‟s & my

concept of an Information Literate University)

• Still, even if one has limited power in overall

teaching approach: focus on questioning,

encouraging, challenging (where appropriate),

enthusing, giving and facilitating informal feedback

• And at the end of the day – we can all reflect, learn

and contemplate the stars…..

Sheila Webber

s.webber@sheffield.ac.uk

http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/

http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber

Twitter: @sheilayoshikawa

Photos and graphics: Sheila Webber. Some taken in the virtual world Second Life (TM Linden Lab)

References • Borg, M. & Stretton, E. 2009. 'My students and other animals. Or a

vulture, an orb weaver spider, a giant panda and 900 undergraduate

business students...„ 3 (1), 19-30.

http://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/JIL/article/view/PRA-V3-I1-2009-2

• Click, A. et al. (2012) “Studying Students across Borders: An

Ethnographic Study of Research Behavior.” International journal of

library science, 5 (1).

http://ceser.in/ceserp/index.php/ijls/article/view/1241

• Connaway, L. S., White, D., Lanclos, D. and Le Cornu, A. (2012).

“Visitors and residents: what motivates engagement with the digital

information environment?” Information Research, 18(1) paper 556.

http://InformationR.net/ir/18-1/paper556.html

• Ellis D, Cox D and Hall K.(1993) “A comparison of the information

seeking researchers in the physical and social sciences.” Journal of

Documentation, 49, 356 - 369.

• Erdelez S. (1999) “Information encountering: it's more than just bumping into information.” Bulletin of the American Association for Information Science 25 (3). http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Feb-99/erdelez.html

• Ford, N. (1986) “Psychological determinants of information needs: a small-scale study of higher education students.” Journal of librarianship and information science, 18 (1), 47-62.

• Green, D. (2013) “The ERIAL Project: Findings, Ideas, and Tools to Advance Your Library.” Presentation given at the Association of College and Research Libraries National Conference: April 11, 2013. http://www.erialproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Dave-Green-ACRL-FINAL-Presentation-20130411.pdf

• Johnston, B. and Webber, S. (2003) “Information literacy in higher education: a review and case study.” Studies in higher education, 28 (3), 335-352.

• Kuhlthau, C. (1991) “Inside the Search Process: Information Seeking from the User‟s Perspective.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42(5), 361-371.

• Marton, F., Hounsell, D. and Entwistle, N. (Eds.) (1984) The Experience of learning: implications for teaching and studying in higher education. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press.

• Meyers, E. Fisher, K. and Marcoux, E. (2009) “Making sense of an

information worlds: the everyday life information behaviour of preteens.”

Library Quarterly, 79 (3), 301–341

• Newble, D.I. and Entwistle, N.J. (1986) “Learning styles and approaches:

implications for medical education.” Medical education, 20, 162-195.

• Perry, W. G. (1981). "Cognitive and Ethical Growth: The Making of

Meaning", in: Arthur W. Chickering and Associates, The Modern American

College . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. pp76-116.

• Timpany, C. et al. (2013). “Shared browsing and book selection in an

academic library.” Paper presented at: Collaborative Information Seeking:

Consolidating the Past, Creating the Future: February 24 2013: San

Antonio, Texas.

http://collab.infoseeking.org/resources/papers/cis2013/TimpanyPaper.pdf

• Wilson, T.D. (2000) “Human information behavior.” Informing science, 3

(2), 49-55.

Perry‟s (1981) levels of intellectual

development

• Dualism – see things as right or wrong, and look for an authority (e.g. teacher) or signal of authority e.g. that it‟s a textbook, to tell him/her which is which

• Multiplicity – accepts different perspectives, but thinks all are equally valid

• Relativism – realises that not all views are equally valid & you have to evaluate in context, but not yet secure in doing so

• Commitment – has developed own perspective and understands ambiguous nature of knowledge

Approaches to study

Surface

• Memorising

• Skim reading

• Atomistic approach (finding bits to put together)

• Selecting from the material

• Intention to reproduce

Deep

• Meaning making, connecting

• Looking at whole texts to understand the author‟s intention

• Selecting within the material

• Intention to understand

Strategic

• Identifying what is

required by

marker/examiner and

focusing on that

• May or may not involve

understanding

(depends on what the

task is)

• Intention to succeed

or excel (in an

assignment, exam)

e.g. Marton et al. 1984; Newble and Entwistle, 1986

Deep critical information

behaviour has its rewards