Presented at LILAC 2008

1. Christopher G Walker | Innovation North | LILAC 2008 Planning & Decision Making | c.g.walker@leedsmet.ac.uk 1
Information Literacy in the Home:
A study of the use and understanding of
information by parents of young children
Christopher G. Walker
PhD Researcher
LILAC 2008

2. Christopher G Walker | Innovation North | LILAC 2008 Planning & Decision Making | c.g.walker@leedsmet.ac.uk
‘Information literacy is the Zeitgeist of our times’
(Bundy, 2004)
‘A typical child spends only 15% of their time in school, and
remaining 85% at home.’
Stephanie Makin, Deputy Head Teacher
‘Parental involvement in a child’s schooling between the
ages of 7 and 16 is a more powerful force than family
background, size of family and level of parental
education’ (Feinstein, L & Symons,
1999)
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3. Christopher G Walker | Innovation North | LILAC 2008 Planning & Decision Making | c.g.walker@leedsmet.ac.uk
• Much of the existing literature deals with
information literacy in a pedagogical
context.
• There is little research into the application
of information literacy in a ‘real world
setting’.
• There has been comparatively little
investigation into the information seeking
behaviour of parents.
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4. Christopher G Walker | Innovation North | LILAC 2008 Planning & Decision Making | c.g.walker@leedsmet.ac.uk
• To increase our understanding of information literacy
theory in the social context of parenting.
• To examine information literacy in its widest context
and determine how parents identify an information
need, search for, evaluate and use the information they
obtain.
• To provide a new perspective on the concept of
information literacy, moving it away from more
accepted behaviouristic understanding and applying the
concept to the sociological context of modern
parenting.
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5. Christopher G Walker | Innovation North | LILAC 2008 Planning & Decision Making | c.g.walker@leedsmet.ac.uk
• To fully define the term information literacy for the
purpose of this project.
• To obtain high quality data determining the information
needs of parents.
• To obtain high quality data determining the sources of
information parents use.
• To devise a measure to obtain high quality data to
assess the information literacy skills of parents.
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6. Christopher G Walker | Innovation North | LILAC 2008 Planning & Decision Making | c.g.walker@leedsmet.ac.uk
• To gain an understanding of how a parent’s gender,
ethnicity, age, education and social economic
background affects:
– Their attitudes to the internet as a beneficial source
of information;
– Their ability to make sense of the internet as a
source of information.
• To gain and determine the suitability of existing
information literacy models in the social context of
parenting.
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7. Christopher G Walker | Innovation North | LILAC 2008 Planning & Decision Making | c.g.walker@leedsmet.ac.uk
• Very little research into the information literacy of
parents
• Parents ‘overloaded’ with help and advice from
‘professionals’, family and friends, TV, books,
magazines and the internet (Mumsnet) etc.
• A lot of recent government activity:
– Every Child Matters
– The Children’s Plan
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8. Christopher G Walker | Innovation North | LILAC 2008 Planning & Decision Making | c.g.walker@leedsmet.ac.uk
• Health issues such as, ‘is the MMR safe?’
• What is the truth about healthy eating?
• Child development questions e.g. childhood
illness, academic stages.
‘Parents needed information on: health for the
child, child care, and child development.’
(Nicholas and Marden 1997)
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9. Christopher G Walker | Innovation North | LILAC 2008 Planning & Decision Making | c.g.walker@leedsmet.ac.uk
• Interview between 60 – 90 parents of
primary school aged children in Leeds
• Mixed socio-economic backgrounds.
• Parents recruited with help from:
– Primary school head teachers
– Leeds Health and Wellbeing project
– Leeds Parental Advisors
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10. Christopher G Walker | Innovation North | LILAC 2008 Planning & Decision Making | c.g.walker@leedsmet.ac.uk
• Semi-structured lasting about an hour.
• Each interview will be recoded,
transcribed and coded.
• NVivo 7 will be used to help analyse and
code the data.
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11. Christopher G Walker | Innovation North | LILAC 2008 Planning & Decision Making | c.g.walker@leedsmet.ac.uk 11
Christopher Walker
PhD Researcher
Faculty of Innovation North
Leeds Metropolitan University
Priestley Hall - Room 206
Beckett Park
Leeds LS6 3QS
Phone: 0113 812 8669
Email: c.g.walker@leedsmet.ac.uk
Web: www.cgwalker.org.uk