Back from Project Information Literacy Symposium

I apologize for being away so long. It will not happen again.

I recently returned (now two weeks ago) from the Project Information Literacy (PIL) Symposium at Purdue University in Indiana. The symposium was to present the research team's (co-directors; Alison Head & Mike Eisenberg from the University of Washington's iSchool) findings from the project's most recently completed survey of 8,353 college students from 25 colleges and universities in the U.S. What an amazing sample! The full report (quite readable) is available on the PIL website.

At the symposium, Alison Head discussed the findings, and the team's conclusions. She also discussed the methods the project employed and factors that guided their decisions along the way. It was great to learn all that background. I was part of a "reaction" panel with Sharon Weiner (Purdue), Frank Gallagher (Cable in the Classroom), Doreen Bradley (U. of Michigan), that was moderated by Karen Schneider (Holy Names University). Karen did her best to stir up controversy amongst the panelists, but for the most part we agreed with the findings and the recommendations made in the report.

For my part, I was was struck by the conclusions drawn in the PIL report indicating that students are facile at finding and evaluating information, yet not engaged in "higher order" activities such as interpreting, synthesizing and generating new constructs (page 37 of the report). While one cannot make a direct comparison, the PIL findings reminded me of the phenomenographic research I conducted a couple years ago. My two studies revealed four different ways that undergraduates understood using information for their assignments: 1) using technology, 2) finding sources, 3) engaging in a process, or a more sophisticated approach of 4) building a knowledge base. (Some of you will recognize these categories as being similar to Bruce's Seven Faces.) The symposium discussion gave me a "many roads, one destination" sort of feeling. Kicked off at the symposium, the findings are beginning to get disseminated and discussed - see for example Barbara Fister's response (always worth noting) at Inside Higher Ed.

In any event, the attendees at the PIL symposium seemed in agreement that there is still much work to be done to change curriculum and practice to address all the different aspects of information literacy.

Referred to, but not linked to:

Bruce, C. (1997). The seven faces of information literacy. Adelaide: Auslib Press.

Maybee, C. (2006). Undergraduate perceptions of information use: The basis for creating user-centered student information literacy instruction. Journal of Academic Librarianship, v32(n1), p79.

Maybee, C. (2007). Understanding our student learners: A phenomenographic study revealing the ways that undergraduate women at mills college understand using information. Reference Services Review, 35(3), 452-462.