Presentation given by Sheila Webber (Sheffield University Information School) on 16 August 2013 in Singapore National Library at the IFLA Satellite meeting on Information Literacy and reference services

1. 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

3. 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)

4. 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.

5. • 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”

6. “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)

7. • 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!

8. Obviously,
I think information
literacy can help
you along the
pathway

9. “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

10. The information literate
person is in context
past present future

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. Quotation from interview for research by Dr Shahd Salha

16. 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

17. 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)

18. 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)

19. 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

20. 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)

21. 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…..

22. 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)

23. 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.

24. • 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.

25. • 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.

26. 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

27. 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

28. Deep critical information
behaviour has its rewards