#ECIL2023 Bridging Skills and Thresholds: Exploring Instructors’ Definitions of Information Literacy Using Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy

 Pam McKinney here live blogging from the final session on day 1 of the ECIL conference. In this presentation Katie Blocksidge from Ohio State University spoke about their project to explore instructors perceptions of information literacy using Blooms revised taxonomy. Research  has shown that faculty staff think that IL encompasses a range of skills, but rarely share a conception with librarians, and faculty are inconsistent in their approach to teaching information literacy. Faculty believe that students do develop IL, but fail to develop higher order skills in IL. This may be because faculty have forgotten how they developed their higher order IL skills, and provide assignments that are ill suited to developing these skills in their students. Blooms taxonomy can be used to conceptionalise an information literacy programme. A survey was administered to faculty staff that asked them to define what information literacy meant to them. A revised version of blooms taxonomy with more detailed descriptions of the various levels was used to categorise the descriptions provided by the survey respondents. In the findings they presented a 5 step adaptation of blooms taxonomy called an information literacy taxonomy. The base stage was labelled “remember” which was characterised as a general awareness of knowledge practices related to information literacy e.g. knowledge of database. It is foundational knowledge for more complex ways of knowing. The second stage was “understand” which referred to basic applied skills e.g. find and use credible information. Learners are beginning to develop the capacity for these practices and ways of thinking, but haven’t mastered them yet. The third stage “apply” is characterised by mastery of basic skills and moving towards higher levels e.g. critical use of information, and ethically producing information. Learners can understand the wider context of their information use, and are more sophisticated in the way they interact with information. The fourth stage “analyse” learners could connect and adapt their skills to particular information contexts, for example understand the limitations of different sources of information. Learners are crossing information literacy thresholds and moving from a skills or task based orientation to the integration of this knowledge in ways of working. The final stage is “create” where learners can understand the information landscape and can explain this to others, transitioning from information consumer to knowledge creator. This model could provide a structure true for intentional reflection on information literacy related learning goals.