Conception, integration, and experiences of information literacy through resource-based learning / Halida Yu
This study employed a case study qualitative inquiry to understand how teachers incorporated, and students experienced information literacy through a resource-based school project. Although project-based learning is claimed to promote information literacy development, most of the studies are cond...
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| Format: | Thesis |
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2014
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| Online Access: | http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/5816/ http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/5816/1/Cover_contents.pdf |
| Summary: | This study employed a case study qualitative inquiry to understand how
teachers incorporated, and students experienced information literacy through a
resource-based school project. Although project-based learning is claimed to
promote information literacy development, most of the studies are conducted in the
western society. Few studies have explored on this area in the context of developing
nations to validate the findings. Employing the situated information literacy (SIL)
theory, this study argues that learning could only be understood by observing the
process within its context. It uses the three directions: SIL model to examine
information literacy experiences from three directions, namely: actions and
product, cognition, and participation directions.
The participants in the study were four project teachers and twenty-three
students (formed into four groups). They came from four schools that represent the
“typical” schools in Malaysia. It adopted multiple data collection techniques: (a)
teacher interview; (b) students focus-group interview (FGI); (c) students research
journal. Two auxiliary techniques; classroom observation and students project
report were also employed to triangulate the findings. The multiple method and data
sources investigation have led to the multi-stage, simultaneous data collection
research protocol research design to overcome time constraint and ethical
challenges. Data were collected in three stages: (a) stage one: classroom
observation, student journal; (b) stage two: teacher interview, collecting students’
journals, students FGI one; (c) stage three: students FGI two, collecting students’
report, FGI three.
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The findings revealed low information literacy awareness among all
participants. Most teachers and students did not know, or have never heard about
“information literacy”. Students’ competencies were found to be at the lower end of
the information literacy model orders. Teachers and students were nevertheless,
found to engage in some information-related activities, particularly on information
seeking, information use and referencing, and report writing. Teachers’ teaching
approaches were examined to understand knowledge transfer pertaining to research
and writing skills. The results revealed that teachers did not play crucial role to
demonstrate complex skills in these areas. Accordingly, students demonstrated low
competencies in these skills.
The straightforward nature of the project task and teacher’s teaching
approach did not help to get students engaged into more challenging, informationbased
activities. They were spared from engaging in critical thinking activities such
as defining the task or the problem statement. They opted for convenience, rather
than reliable information during the information seeking stage and relied mostly on
internet resources. They were innocently unaware of ethical information use
practices and plagiarised indiscriminately, and report writing, to some extent was
about transporting chunks of information into their report. There was almost no
reflection made on learning process and the end product. Despite the negative
findings, students reported to have learned and benefited much from the project,
some of which were, developing; ICT skills, information seeking skills, referencing
skills, collaborative skills, and report writing skills. The study therefore, validates
the argument against merely focusing on getting students to accomplish several
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isolated skills in a decontextualized environment. It maintains that each learning
experience should be understood within its context. |
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