Reflection 3 - Done and Dusted

Bernie's personal cycle of Information Inquiry


1. Take some time to think about your topic. Now write down what you know about it.

I have not actually strayed very far from my initial, survey one statement about this topic area. I still see information literacy as a set of skills, attitudes and aptitudes that allow users to make sense of a wide range of texts and inquiry learning as a style of teaching and learning that puts the onus on the students to explore, discover and create knowledge and understanding in a range of curriculum areas. Additionally, I now know that I have a well researched, theoretical basis for my belief that inquiry learning is extremely difficult for students with poor information literacy skills. Kuhlthau et al. (2007, P.22) and Callison (2006, p.6) acknowledge the need for any form of inquiry learning to be a joint process of scaffolded inquiry learning with instruction and practice in information literacy built in.

What I have learnt, and that I find extremely alarming, is that students are making it as far as achieving entry to university and still having poor information literacy skills. It is hardly surprising then that so many university students drop out in the first year. To suddenly move from the highly supported and structured environment of school to the self directed environment of university must be nearly impossible without high level information literacy. Unfortunately, studies by Rowlands (in Gordon, 2010, p.4) and Barnard et al. (2005, pp.505-507) have found that while modern university students are almost all highly skilled users of computers they are often not very information literate. They consider that while some faculties in universities are adjusting their course planning to include inquiry learning as a pedagogy most are not including an information literacy component.

In short, what all this means is that primary and secondary schools need to place an enormous focus on information literacy skills and try to plan more genuine inquiry units: not information retrieval units that are labelled inquiry just because the students are seeking out information. This is not an easy ask of schools that are under increasing pressure to cover large amounts of curriculum content. Inquiry learning does not cover large amounts of fact gathering, to fit in with the demands of standardized testing, and takes considerably more time than direct instruction. However, inquiry learning has been shown to improve student learning outcomes and is therefore worth pursuing (Friedman et al., 2009, pp.768-780; Todd, 2001, p.8; Callison, 2006, p.9). A study by Blanchard et al. (2010, p.577) showed that inquiry learning actually improved standardized testing results in the domain of Science. However, similar studies need to be undertaken in the social science areas before any real claims can be made about the relationship between an inquiry learning pedagogy and results on tests such as NAPLAN. This may well have already occurred and I just haven’t found them in my searching. This is something I wish to follow up on after I finish my Masters so that I can make informed planning decisions in the future. That would be Callison (2006) again: every answer raises more questions and keep me turning in a circle of inquiry.

2. How interested are you in this topic?
Not at all not much quite a bit a great deal

3. How much do you know about this topic?
Nothing not much quite a bit a great deal 

4. Thinking back on your research project, what did you find easiest to do? Please list as many things as you like.

I found the literature review the easiest to do because I enjoy research, the expectations of the task were very clear and the topic was extremely interesting. I started out quite confused by how to approach the tertiary context but as I researched, read and wrote I found it really interesting and enjoyable.

5. Thinking back on your research project, what did you find most difficult to do? Please list as many things as you like.

Time management is definitely what I have found the hardest. I am trying to complete my Masters full time but health issues with my family have made things very difficult. I still don’t know if I will be able to get everything done and complete the course. I am really struggling to understand what to do in a couple of subjects and assistance is minimal, at best. This has put a lot of pressure on my other subjects, including this one. Apart from the stress of getting things done I have enjoyed the research project.

6. What did you learn in doing this research project? Please list as many things as you like.

• That there is a standardised pattern of behaviours and emotions that are common to all research endeavours. This has helped me to panic less when I am going through the overwhelmed stage. Kuhlthau et al. (2006) have helped with the sense of isolation that self directed inquiry and the remote delivery nature of this course create in me. Knowing others feel the same has helped keep me focussed.
• That the Google Generation may be more ICT savvy than me but that they quite possibly have significant more problems with information literacy than I do. I have always assumed that I am well behind the eight ball because of my age and how late I started using ICTS, but this does not appear to be the case.
• That even though I have always focussed heavily on a range of forms of literacy in my teaching I need to put even more into information literacy.
• That I need to revisit my ‘inquiry’ units and make sure that they are not just little more than ill disguised searches for information.


References

Barnard, A. Nash, R. & O'Brien, M. (2005). Information Literacy: Developing Lifelong Skills Through Nursing Education. In Journal of Nursing Education, 44(11), 505-10. Retrieved August 9, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals.

Blanchard, M., Southerland, S., Osborne, J., Sampson, V., Annetta, L., & Granger, E. (2010). Is inquiry possible in light of accountability? A quantitative comparison of the relative effectiveness of guided inquiry and verification laboratory instruction. In Science Education, 94(4), 577. Retrieved August 16, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals

Callison, D. (2006). Chapter 1: Information Inquiry: concepts and elements. [Electronic format] In D. Callison & L Preddy (Ed.), The blue book on information age inquiry, instruction and literacy. Westport: Libraries Unlimited. Retrieved August 9, 2010 from Queensland University of Technology Course Materials Database.

Friedman, D., Crews, T., Caicedo, J. Besley, J. Weinberg, J. & Freeman, M. (2009). An exploration into inquiry-based learning by a multidisciplinary group of higher education faculty. In Higher Education, 59 (6), 765-783. Retrieved August 9, 2010 from ProQuest Education journals.

Gordon, C. (2010). Inquiry in the School Library: A 21st Century Solution? In School Libraries Worldwide, 16(1), 1-8. Retrieved August 17, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals.

Kuhlthau, C. Maniotes, L. & Caspari, A. (2007). Guided inquiry: learning in the 21st century. Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited.

Todd, R. (2001). From Information to Knowledge: the journey begins. In synergy 5 (2), 8-9. Retrieved August 17, 2010 from Education A+ database.

On and on we go

Thanks Obiwankenus for pointing out Kuhlthau's statement "The process maybe more cyclical than the model implies, with stages recurring in a persistent quest for decreased uncertainty and increased understanding" (2004, p. 94). This certainly makes the ISP more user friendly for me. I am definitely back to Kuhlthau et al.'s feeling of being overwhelmed now that I start to try to think about analysing the data and critiquing the Learning Activity. I do, however still feel more at ease with the Callison model. Perhaps by the end of this that will change as I am certainly going to explore further models.

With a view to some initial ideas on critiquing the Learning Activity I thought I would have a look at some evaluation tools or processes that are out there to see if any of them would help organise my thought processes. I want something that will give me a kick off point to structure suggestions for the future etc., once I have analysed the data and seen what it has to say.

Until now I have been unable to get the extra Google features to work on my computer but I have finally got it working and decided to give it a go. I really didn't have time, and to be quite honest the energy and motivation, to deal with the Uni databases today so all I was hoping to get from this was some ideas for a direction in which to head. In short, I was hoping to come up with some ideas that would help me with the optimism of the Selection stage and the sense of direction of the Collection stage of the Kuhlthau et al. ISP.

To my delight it worked fantastically.

I started out with the basic search parameter of 'inquiry learning' which resulted in a wonder wheel full of viable options. I chose to follow a path titled ‘inquiry based learning’ which led me to ‘supported learning’. There were some really good options under both of these. Most of them were from universities or journals so they weren’t rubbish. I then tried ‘guided inquiry’ and got some great results. In particular the wonder wheel ultimately gave me a link to a combined ‘guided enquiry, information literacy’ which yielded some great results. I am a now a firm devotee of Google’s wonder wheel. I have included a screen shot of the 'guided inquiry' wonder wheel but it is a little hard to see without making it truly enormous.

I have included a video of the creator of wonder wheel doing a demo on how to use it for anyone who is interested.

My searching so far, and discussions with fellow teachers in low literacy schools, has confirmed something I always felt was the case but was concerned that it was just a personal opinion with no real theoretical basis. I was also concerned that I was just being negative. However, it has become obvious to me that unless you are teaching a group of students with high information literacy skills inquiry based learning is not going to be successful, unless it is guided/scaffolded and undertaken in conjunction with embedded and additional instruction and learning activities to improve information literacy (Limberg, 2000, pp.193-194). It seems that while you can have information literacy without inquiry learning, you cannot have inquiry learning without information literacy. It should be said, however, that information literacy is greatly improved when it is taught and practiced within an inquiry process rather than as a separate entity (Callison, 2006, p.15; Kuhlthau et al., 2007, pp.77-79).

Survey 2 - The Quest Continues

Search Reflection sheet

1. Take some time to think about your topic. Now write down what you know about it.

My understanding of Information Literacy has expanded since I started this subject. I still believe in everything I said on my first survey but I now have an awareness of its place in tertiary education. I guess I would have expected that if you have done well enough in the past to gain entry into a university course then you would already be information literate. Maybe some mature age students, like me, may have trouble with computer literacy and information literacy in the technology arena, but overall I would expect tertiary students to be information literate and capable of self directed learning.

My research has led me to discover that this is not the case and that universities are finding themselves in the position of needing to provide information literacy instruction and programs for students. They are finding that the ‘Google Generation’ have excellent technical user skills but not necessarily the ability to understand what they are viewing. I found this very surprising. Clearly schools need to be ensuring that they are incorporating IL into their instruction if they are going to create lifelong learners.

2. How interested are you in this topic? Circle the answer that best matches your interest.

Not at all not much quite a bit a great deal

3. How much do you know about this topic? Nothing not much quite a bit a great deal

4. When you do research, what do you generally find easy to do?

I still find researching fun and engaging, although I have had serious problems with it in one of my subjects – an eventuality I hadn’t counted on. I am expanding my skills: using OR more, instead of just AND; using Google Scholar more frequently.

5. When you do research, what do you generally find difficult to do?

My answer to this question really hasn’t changed. I still find it hard to know when I have enough and can stop, although I am getting better at evaluating as I go.

Where am I? Where am I?

Searching, searching, sick of searching! Throughout the whole search and find process so far I have kept in mind some of the stages I have been going through and thought it was about time I documented some of it. When I had a serious read of Kuhlthau et al’s information search process (ISP) (Figure 1) I could immediately identify with some of the stages and have documented some of it below:



Figure 1. Kuhlthau ISP model

Initiation: I was definitely feeling very uncertain at the beginning because my school context fell through, time kept moving on, and I was starting to think I might have to drop out due to a lack of a learning experience to document. Fortunately, Mandy came to my rescue which took me along the continuum into the Selection and Exploration stage. I found the lines between the two stages blurred for me and that I could not really identify moving from one to the other. However, I most certainly did experience the frustration, confusion and doubt of the Exploration stage of the Kuhlthau et al. ISP.

My context, because I am using Youth, Popular Culture and Texts, is tertiary or adult education. I found it quite difficult to find research material on this specific context. Eventually, through perseverance, wine and foul language I eventually came up with a good body of research. I used Google Scholar, ProQuest Education database and Education A+ database. Normally I search with only one or two parameters first and just see what I find. This time round, however, I was getting fairly desperate and panicked about my workload and decided I really needed to search smarter, instead of longer. I always use Boolean operators such as AND but this time I decided to use OR to a fuller extent. My past searching efforts had yielded some good results but I had serious gaps in my information. On reviewing what I had already found I had moved into Kuhlthau’s Formulation and Clarity phases, where I now had a vague sense of direction and had formed enough of an understanding on my topic to know what I was missing in the line of research. As a result of ProQuest’s suggested related topics on my last round of searches I decided to use the following search parameters in all three of the abovementioned database:

Inquiry + tertiary OR higher education OR adult education

Literacy + inquiry OR tertiary OR higher education OR adult education

Inquiry + literacy

Because I was being so specific I didn’t get huge amounts of results, but frankly I didn’t want huge amounts to weigh me down and confuse me. In the end I came up with ten really good results that have seen me move on to Presentation. My draft, which went on Blackboard today, has me hovering somewhere in between Kuhlthau’s Satisfaction or Disappointment that he lists as the affective domain of this stage.

To some extent I have found the ISP model a little confusing for me. Because I am studying full time I have an enormous amount of research going on at the moment and I have found it difficult to separate my place in the ISP for this subject, from my place in the ISP overall. I am in completely different stages depending on how I look at it. When just considering this mini essay task I have moved along and reached Presentation quite happily, however, if I look at the subject in its entirety, or even worse the whole course workload, I am I still wavering back and forth between Initiation and Exploration. Not a good sign, obviously. I find myself more comfortable with Callison’s model of Information Inquiry with its circular pattern and emphasis on questioning (Figure 2).

In the process of my searching around I found a great website that outlines about 10 different models of searching and inquiry. It is well worth a look at

http://virtualinquiry.com/inquiry/models.htm

Figure 2. Callison cycle of Information Inquiry elements

Callison’s model is circular in nature, rather than the linear layout of the Kuhlthau et al. model, and I am certainly going round in circles. I don’t necessarily mean that in a negative manner, but I most certainly agree with Callison: that questioning is central to inquiry and that every question ‘answered’ raises more questions. My search processes have moved me back and forth between Callison’s stages and this is in keeping with his model. After each search session, and then analysis of my findings, I moved through all his phases: from Questioning to Exploration to Assimilation to Inference and to Reflection. However, as Callison purports, the Assimilation and Reflection has then raised issues that I felt needed more exploration and more evidence, so I went back to Questioning to frame what it was I still needed to know. Personally, whilst I was clearly positioned, at times, in the stages of the Kuhlthau et al. ISP, Callison’s framework actually fits better with how I work and how I think. It is the ever fluid nature of the Callison framework that I find so applicable to my study processes.

References

Kuhlthau, C. Maniotes, L. & Caspari, A. (2007). Guided inquiry: learning in the 21st century. Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited.

Callison, D. (2006). Chapter 1: Information Inquiry: concepts and elements. [Electronic format] In D. Callison & L Preddy (Ed.), The blue book on information age inquiry, instruction and literacy. Westport: Libraries Unlimited. Retrieved August 9, 2010 from Queensland University of Technology Course Materials Database.