Evolving Tools for Information Literacy from Models of Information Behavior

Abstract

Although models are often assumed to constitute the end product of a research project, it is not unusual for them to be refined after subsequent study or thought. Having presented a model of young people's information behavior in a previous paper elsewhere, the authors here offer a more compact version and explore the possibilities for its application in a teaching context with pupils. Use of models in this way can play an important part in reducing the longstanding gap between information-seeking research and information literacy instruction. Drawing inspiration from earlier work undertaken by Shenton with Masters students at Northumbria University, the authors demonstrate how it is possible to evolve from such models pro formas that can be completed by pupils to help them in relation to their own information-seeking activity. Shenton and Hay-Gibson feature here one such pro forma, intended for use by secondary schoolers. They discuss its value in promoting metacognition and indicate how this type of tool may be introduced at one of various points in an assignment task: in advance (as a pupil planning aid), while the activity is taking place (so as to guide information-seeking as it happens) or at the end (to aid summative reflection).

Keywords:

• information behavior
• information literacy
• reflection
• research
• school libraries
• schools