Developing online research skills; Young people creating texts and literacy #ECIL2023

Continuing liveblogging from ECIL (from Sheila) Tuulikki Alamettälä (University of Oulu, Finland) talked about Developing Online Research Skills in a Lower Secondary School: The Viewpoint of Students. She identified that onlne research skills have been described in different ways (information literacy, digital literacy) but she used “online research skills” as she was specifically focusing on searching done online. These skills can be challenging for young people to learn, and also teachers are not always confident in teaching them.
Alamettälä then outlined Kuhlthau’s model of Guided Inquiry as a process to develop information literacy, inquiry learning and social skills. The stages of Guided Inquiry are: open, immerse, explore, identify, gather, create, share and evaluate. The process has students as discoverers and co-creators of knowledge, and sharing is an important part. For this intervention, Alamettälä collaborated with language and history teachers, and they incorporated the Guided Inquiry (GI) process into the curriculum. The teachers introduced inquiry logs and emphasised the first part of the GI process. There were 3 classes, 58 students, aged 13-15. There were 3 interventions at different stages of the students' pathway through school.
Alamettälä used a quasi-experimental design (with pre and post tests), including a control group of students. Teachers were able to integrate some of the elements of Guided Inquiry and it was in accord with a learner-focused approach in Finnish education.
While the GI group did better in a post-test shortly after finishing it, a follow up a while later did not show a difference between GI group and control group. Alamettälä also reported further results not included in reporting her doctoral research previously, involving questionnaires after the 3 interventions. Some points were that there were differences in reactions to the three interventions, which could be attributed to a variety of factors such as novelty, the way the activity was introduced by the teacher, the exact nature and requirements of each intervention. The most challenging part was seen as sharing in presentations.
Looking at statistical correlations, one finding was that if the student engaged with instructions (about what to do in class) then there was a more positive feeling about learning experience. Conclusions included that the teachers were able to use GI as a source of inspiration and incorporate some of it into teaching. The model also seemed to work for the students as they were able to engage with the interventions and didn’t experience major challenges.
The last paper in a session about “New Generation education” was Fearing for Their Lives: Implications of Children and Youth as Generators of Informational Texts and Literacy from Barbara McNeil (University of Regina, Canada). The focus was If I go missing by Brianna, a 14 year old indigenous girl (Jonnie et al., 2019). McNeil referred to Lupton’s phenomenographic research which discovered three conceptions of information literacy: as backing up an argument; developing an argument; in the process of learning as a social responsibility. This is an example of the last conception.
McNeil then talked about facts and campaigns to do with missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, particularly in Canada (e.g. that they are statistically more likely to be abused and murdered). These are not new concerns, but not much has been done about the situation. The graphic novel by Brianna Jonnie and colleagues is a response to this situation, and McNeil showed us pages from the novel and highlighted particular parts of the book, for example how the images and words aim to disrupt ideas about indigenous women, and indict the police and their lack of action and insight.
McNeil showed how the novel was educating us about what the situation was, what was being done wrong by the public, police, media etc. and what should be done by the media and police. McNeil identified how the book was humanising indigenous women and girls, urging people to humanise the women and girls if they went missing (not treating them as a stereotyped statistic).
In terms of implications – this young woman had evidenced her information literacy in her production of a multimodal publication and evidenced her power. McNeil urged us to enable young people to exercise power by using information literacy and developing information literacy to take action and protest – “honestly and openly confronting” bias, injustices and misrepresentation. Thus they can be empowered in civic engagement, and also learn collaboration and other skills such as the use of storytelling and advocacy. The book by Jonnie can be used as as example and evidence of the ability to apply information literacy in this active way.