Pedagogy,Politics and Information Literacy

Introduction

Information literacy has become an increasingly prominent concept in higher education over the last few years. Indeed there have been moves towards the creation of the Information Literate University: an institution which ‘requires everyone in the university to become information literate, whether administrators, students, researchers, librarians or academics’ (Webber and Johnson, 2006, p. 48). Some disciplines have taken the concept seriously. Law, for example, regards the application of the concept of information literacy as a significant component of legal research skills training (Clinch, 2006). Politics, however, appears to be a laggard in terms of developing coherent strategies for incorporating information literacy.

This article will include a short explanation of the concept of information literacy. It will also address connections between information literacy and Politics, making the argument that, to be a successful Politics student, sufficient information literacy is a necessity. However, the heart of this article will be an examination of attempts to embed information literacy into the Politics curriculum.

Defining information literacy

Once librarians were regarded largely as the ‘custodians’ of the finite recourses available within the walls of their institution; however, the explosion in the availability of information – largely in the form of electronic information – has radically changed this role. Librarians should now be regarded more as ‘gatekeepers’ of information. As a result, library skills training for students has developed to become a conceptually sophisticated task involving the teaching of the critical evaluation of this information. As Rebecca Albrecht and Sara Baron have remarked, ‘librarians are no longer keepers of information, but teachers of information’ (Albrecht and Baron, 2002, p. 72). Information literacy has become the term most associated with this change of role.

Unfortunately, if inevitably, as the term ‘information literacy’ has become increasingly fashionable, so the concept has become ever more contested (Armstrong et al., 2005; Owusu-Ansah, 2003). However, it is worth noting two attempts at defining the concept that have displayed commendable resilience. The US, along with Australia, was a front-runner in the development of information literacy, and one sturdy definition was developed, in 1989, by the American Library Association Presidential Committee on Information Literacy. This body suggested that, ‘to be information literate, a person must recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information’ (American Library Association, 1989, p. 1).

From the British perspective, the second of the definitions that have stood the test of time was drawn up by the Standing Conference of National and University Libraries (SCONUL) in 1999. In a manner similar to that of the American Library Association, SCONUL identified a number of characteristics of a sufficiently information-literate individual. However, unlike the US model, it includes a number of levels (or ‘pillars’) suggesting a progression from basic to more sophisticated competencies. It is known as the ‘seven pillars of information literacy’ (Task Force on Information Skills, 1999), and these particular ‘pillars’ are:

The focus for this model was on the field of higher education, and it was anticipated that undergraduates would use the first four skills in their first year. They would continue to practise these skills as they progressed and developed further ones, until reaching the seventh ‘pillar’, which was deemed most applicable for postgraduate students. It is this model that will be drawn on most heavily in this article.

Although these two definitions appear to suggest that the accumulation of skills is the most significant aspect of information literacy, it is worth noting that, for some, skills acquisition is only the start of a more revolutionary process. For information specialists such as Alan Bundy and Susie Andretta the real worth of information literacy is that it has the potential to challenge pedagogic orthodoxy across the entire curriculum. Andretta claims that the traditional learning culture in universities ‘reinforces the spoon-feeding expectations of students’ (Andretta, 2006, p. 13), and that this will be challenged by the ‘learning-how-to-learn’ approach inherent within the process of achieving information literacy. Bundy goes further, suggesting that ‘for the future of an enlightened and less fearful world, and in that race between education and catastrophe, education must seek not to domesticate, but to liberate’ (Bundy, 2004). He suggests that the pathfinders towards this brave new world will be the information literate, and that they will increasingly be dissatisfied with the traditional transmittal mode of pedagogic delivery, and will seek instead techniques that encourage command of their own learning.

Information literacy and Politics

There has been little written linking information literacy to the teaching of Politics. In part, this dearth is a reflection of the fact that it tends to be information specialists – rather than academics largely confined to their own narrow fields – who write about information literacy. However, in earlier work, this author noted clear links between the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) subject benchmark statements for Politics and International Relations (http://www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/benchmark/politics.html) and the competencies identified in SCONUL's ‘seven pillars of wisdom’ (Thornton, 2006). Using just one example, QAA benchmark statements suggest that undergraduate learning should include the ‘critical reading of a wide range of texts including documents, monographs, scholarly articles, statistics, newspapers, textbooks and sources on the internet’. This relates directly to the ‘pillar’ which states that the information literate should be able to ‘compare and evaluate information gained from different sources’. In short, information literacy should be regarded as complementary to the traditional Politics curriculum and not as a rival to it. Questions still remain, however, about how this is best achieved.

One of the most significant and controversial of these questions is whether the information literacy component of a module, in a discipline such as Politics, should be formally credit bearing. Sheila Webber has suggested that ‘unless the information literacy education is tied in with a credit-bearing class, the students may not be obliged to undertake any form of assessment at all, and may not take their information literacy seriously’ (Webber, 2001). Others have disagreed. Indeed, following one experiment into embedding information literacy into a Politics module, it was suggested by this author that students did not need to be ‘prodded with the stick of credit-bearing assessment’ (Thornton, 2006, p. 37). However, this is an issue worth revisiting.

The case study

A pilot study, conducted in 2005, involved a small third-year undergraduate class. There were 19 on the module – ‘Public Policy in the United Kingdom’. One topic, the policy response to the UK's foot and mouth crisis of 2001, was taught explicitly with a prominent information literacy constituent, and this necessitated a move away from the traditional lecture/seminar template, to a more workshop-based format for a period of two weeks. In that period the students were given guidance on how to find relevant information, were given an exercise in assessing the quality of a relevant piece of information taken from the Internet and were asked to use the information gathered to prepare and then deliver a short presentation on the topic. The feedback from the students was overwhelmingly positive (Thornton, 2006, p. 44). However, it was felt that a similar experiment with a greater number of students would prove a sterner challenge. Also, in the initial study, no test had been conducted to discover whether information literacy skills had been improved through the experience. This was to be rectified second time round.

The first part of the repeat experiment took place in December 2006. This time it involved a much larger group of students – 90 – studying a second-year module entitled ‘Comparative Political Analysis’. The greater number of students meant it was more difficult to timetable sufficient activities within a two-week period. In terms of formal teaching, all that was possible was one lecture for all the students on locating relevant information, and one workshop – repeated three times – which concentrated on the skills involved in assessing information. Sadly, this left no time for a presentation, one of the most popular aspects of the pilot study. The following is a description of what did occur.

Before formal teaching began, the first step for the students was to fill in a diagnostic questionnaire designed to assess their existing information literacy competencies. This questionnaire was designed in close collaboration with information literacy specialists at Cardiff University. The purpose was to find out what relevant training – if any – they had experienced, what sources of information they had already used, where they had found this information, how they assessed the quality of that information and how they formally acknowledged in their work where this information came from.

The responses to the questionnaire suggested that the majority of the students had not received relevant training. Moreover, many of the positive responses made indicated that only basic information location skills had been imparted. This suggested that there might be an information gap to fill. The questionnaire also highlighted the types of information resources used by the students for assessed work. Books were identified by all, but with 67 (out of 71) positive responses, websites were the second most commonly used resource, notably more popular than journal articles, which garnered 53 positive responses. With websites being one of the more variable forms of information in terms of quality, this suggested that instruction in being able to assess the quality of information would be a valuable addition to the curriculum. This was backed by other responses that indicated that many students did not possess a coherent strategy for assessing the worth of a particular piece of information. Many did examine features such as authorship and the status of the publisher, but very few – 16 – mentioned the potential for bias in a piece of information. Further evidence that this sort of training would be useful was provided by responses that indicated that using Internet search engines, such as Google and Google Scholar, to find information was, at 69 responses, a much more popular activity than searching the potentially more reliable databases to which the university subscribes. Only 11 students identified this resource, suggesting that an expensive source of good quality information was not being utilised as widely as it might.

Other responses to the questionnaire suggested that few students were able to go beyond typing in keywords when it came to locating relevant information using databases. More encouragingly, to a question about plagiarism, all the students responded in ways that suggested the importance of acknowledgement had been understood. Questions about referencing indicated that many students still struggled with at least some aspects of this particular skill, correctly citing web pages being the most commonly mentioned difficulty.

Following these results, some adjustments were made to the following sessions. The first of these sessions was the information location lecture presented by an information specialist. As the academic involved, I suggested a topic that could be used to make relevant the information riches easily available to those with access to a university-networked PC. Following the questionnaire, the focus turned to databases, such as ASSIA. Guidance was also provided on techniques that could improve information searches. Although it would have been beneficial to be in a situation where the students could have enjoyed access to PCs, feedback suggested that the students regarded this lecture – combined with the workshops – to be a very worthwhile exercise.

By splitting the class into three, it was possible to find suitable rooms for the students to have access to PCs during the workshop. The point of this session – which was a joint operation between the information specialist and academic involved – was to take the students to the next level of information literacy, that of assessing the quality of various types of information. Again, to make it more relevant, the subject chosen related directly to one of the topics on the module's curriculum. One purpose of the exercise was for the students to find various sources of information. These included web pages written by an individual without presented credentials, an entry in Wikipedia and some respected journal articles. The second, more sophisticated, task was to decide which of these pieces of information could be used in an academic essay. The debates that followed the exercise suggested an increasing awareness of a number of relevant issues. These included discussions about the criteria used to distinguish particular sources of information regarded as being ‘better’ than others, and – touching on issues of power – who sets these criteria.

Learning from the earlier study, it was decided that a more formal test of the students' information literacy skills should be attempted second time round. It had been made clear from the start that the information literacy sessions were not being assessed and that attendance was not compulsory. Being close to the end of term, with essay deadlines pressing, a number of students exercised their right not to participate. Thus, when a follow-up questionnaire was handed out the following February, the first question related to attendance at these sessions. Of those who responded to the questionnaire, 31 had attended at least one element of the information literacy session and 27 had not. Those 27 acted in a similar fashion to an experimental control group.

The first substantive question asked the students about how they would find relevant information for a particular essay. As with all these questions, students had to respond by filling a blank space. Following the diagnostic questionnaire, interest focused on the numbers who would anticipate using a database. The contrast was stark. Of those who had attended at least one element of the information literacy sessions, 74 per cent would consider using a database. This figure dropped to just 26 per cent of those who did not attend.

The next two questions, about Wikipedia, were designed to assess students' ability to assess whether certain resources should be used in certain circumstances but not others. The consensus reached in the workshops was that Wikipedia could be a useful tool in the early stages of research, but was simply not reliable enough to cite in an essay. This was, by far, the most common response in all the groups. Interestingly though, the group that had not participated provided the most polarised response. Twenty-six per cent suggested Wikipedia must never be used, and two students, the only ones from all the groups, thought Wikipedia could be used in any circumstances. Responses to a more detailed question about assessing the reliability of information indicated that those who had attended the sessions were more adept at identifying key criteria. Responses to questions about referencing also suggested those who did attend were marginally more competent at this skill than those who did not.

Conclusion

The two studies conducted into the embedding of information literacy into a Politics module at Cardiff University suggest that the students regard such projects as enjoyable and worthwhile exercises. Moreover, with this latest study, there are now strong indications that those who attended the sessions are considerably more information literate than those who did not. These students may well be more effective Politics students as a result. At the very least, most of those who attended the sessions will be aware of, and able to access, the wealth of good-quality material available on the university's databases, and most of those who did not attend will not.

Clearly, those students who did not attend these sessions were not a true control group. There is a probability that those who did attend were the more diligent students, and might well have performed more ably anyway. This probability does provoke a partial change of heart on the author's part. In the previous study it was concluded that information literacy sessions should not be formally assessed. I would continue to argue that merely bearing the label of ‘credit-bearing’ is not necessary to convince the majority of students that participating in information literacy sessions is a worthwhile endeavour. However, as a device to entice more students, particularly those who would duck out given half a chance, into these sessions, it might be necessary to include some credit-bearing element into the programme. The chance of missing out is too great.