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.