#ECIL2023 Changes in Older Adult’s Attitudes and Use of Health Information and Communication Technology from 2019 to 2022

Pam McKinney here live blogging with @sheilayoshikawa from the ECIL conference in Krakow, Poland. Augusta Palsdottir from the university of Reykjavik. Augusta began by asserting that being able to make informed decisions about their health they need to have access to quality health information, and digital technologies can help people manage their own health. Rapid developments in the health information landscape means that people have to constantly adjust to new services and new information, and new ways of communicating with health professionals. Older adults adapt less quickly, and may have health conditions that make it difficult to use ICT. They may need help from others and consider electronic information less valuable. Older adults prefer to get information from health professionals, But if there is seen to be high value in electronic health information then older people will use it.

 There is a new online health portal in Iceland, which includes health records and prescriptions, although it is not fully developed. It allows access to high quality information about healthy lifestyles. The aim of the study was to explore the adoption of healthcare ICT in older adults. the studies were quantitative, one took place before covid in 2019, and one in 2022. Both were telephone and internet surveys, focusing on people aged 56 years and over. Questions focused on the use of the electronic health portal Heilsuvera to communicate with health professionals, and to seek information about healthy lifestyles. In 2019 74% seldom used the portal to communicate with doctors, make appointments or send a message, but in 2022 this reduced to 37%. People were encouraged to use the system for covid information, and also to use it to avoid attending the dr surgery. However the results show that there was no increase in the use of the portal for seeking information about healthy living from 2019 to 2022. There was also an increase in confidence to begin to use new technology from 2019 to 2022, and people also found it easier to get help to use new health ICT. There was a positive change in attitude to adopting new health ICTs between the two studies, but they need assistance from friends and family.

Advantages and disadvantages of printed and electronic study material #i3rgu

First liveblog from the 3rd day of the i3 conference at RGU in Aberdeen. It was presented by Professor Ágústa Pálsdóttir and coauthored by Sigriour Bjork Einarsdottir and entitled Advantages and disadvantages of printed and electronic study material: Perspectives of university students
This presentation focused on the Icelandic study that is part of the Academic Reading International Study (ARFIS), an international study involving researchers in 36 countries. I have reported on some of these studies, particularly in my reports from the ECIL conference. In this presentation, the authors concentrated on analysis of the open question in the survey.
Previous studies from this project have shown that students prefer printed materials, but also enjoy the convenience of online access, and being able to search inside and across electronic material. Students consider themselves more highly motivated and more likely to highlight and remember what they read. Male students are more likely to prefer online than do female students. Studies to do with behaviours in different disciplines is inconclusive.
The research question of this study was: what are the advantages and disadvantages of printed and electronic study material? Through this is was hoped to gain understanding about preferences and help librarians make collection decisions.
The survey was conducted at 2 Icelandic universities, advertised to 12K students. Response rate was 7.33% (952 respondents), and 178 students answered the open questions.The questionnaire was based on that from Mizrachi's (2014) original study, translated into Icelandic.
Five main themes were identified in the open questions. (1) Printed or electronic material: in this they were stating support for one of the other e.g. "The more teachers use electronic course readings, the happier I am". There were two subthemes: flexibility (having both); preferring electronic but wanting to print it out.
(2) Learning Approach. The first subtheme was ability to concentrate on the learning material e.g. mentioning distractions reading online. The 2nd subtheme was ability to remember the material (mostly saying that they remembered better from print) and the 3rd that the length of the text matters (e.g. articles were good online, but not books and chapters).
(3) Technology: limitations and possibilities. First subtheme was searching and browsing. Some had said electronic was better and some print (e.g. "it's much more easy to move between pages to check material I have read". 2nd subtheme was note making - many of them explained about why they preferred doing this on print e.g. it was easier to make notes or highlight on print, or "if I make notes on the computer, I end up by writing notes which are too long and I lose the main point". 3rd subtheme is technological advancement. The students made interesting observations about how the current technology was not convenient and how it could be improved (e.g. that you couldn't change the layout of pdfs so they were fewer pages to print out; that the material was "badly suited" to read on a screen). The final subtheme was about physical reasons e.g. reading from a screen affecting sleep, causing headaches.
(4) Convenience and expenses. The 1st subtheme was organising and access, where online was emphasised. The 2nd subtheme was cost - and here digital sources were seen as cheaper or free and preferable to buying textbooks etc.
(5) Environmental issues. This was quite a strong theme e.g. that they felt guilty printing out pages.

In sum "The main reason why students prefer printed material is based on their study habits and they feel that the technology has not developed sufficiently to support their learning engagement." Additionally it seems that physical problems haven't been paid enough attention, without awareness of how this can affect study engagement, and environmental aspects have weight with students.

Photo by Sheila Webber: student magazines from the early days of RGU librarianship, seen at the 50 anniversary reception last night

Report from #ecil2014 - The representation of information and media literacy in Icelandic educational legislation, policy documents and in the curricula of Icelandic upper secondary schools

Catching up on a talk just now in the European Conference on Information Literacy, held in Dubrovnik, Thordis T Thorarinsdottir and Augusta Palsdottir had authored Upstairs - Downstairs. The representation of information and media literacy in Icelandic educational legislation, policy documents and in the curricula of Icelandic upper secondary schools
The speaker started by outlining some information about Iceland and its educational systems, noting the impact of the economic crisis in the late 2000s. In terms of the aims of the talk, I will be lazy and copy from the programme "The main aim of this paper to study the representation of media and information literacy (MIL) in the legislation and education policy papers for upper secondary schools in Iceland, in the National Curriculum Guidelines, in the curriculum of the different secondary schools and further to consider whether MIL is included in the description of the learning outcomes in the various subject curricula. The main research question is whether there is a link between the presentation of MIL in the policy documents and in its manifestation in school curriculum."
They referred Klingenberg's IL framework which the speaker said had had an impact on teaching - search, evaluate, know, present are the main elements (I have copied the reference that they gave for this, below, I wasn't familiar with it)
The authors had undertaken a content and discourse analysis of key documents (legislation etc,) and an electronic survey was sent to intstitutions preparing students for university studies. Looking at legislation, searching and database use was mentioned (only). Examining the National Curriculum Guidelines, information literacy is mentioned twice, highlighting use of technology to work with information, and media literacy (so that students can analyse and evaluate media). By contrast, Information Technology is mentioned 3 times.
From the survey 82% of the schools surveyed have a library, and 85% of these are run by librarians. Looking at "who teaches", 41% respondents said that school librarians and teachers are responsible for IL teaching and 24% said there is no systematic IL teaching (I'm not reporting on all statistics, so these won't add up to 100%!). 74% said it is taught as part of a subject, for 17% information literacy is "stand alone". 50% follow National Curriculum Guidelines, most of the others use their school's curriculum. 39% said IL was sometimes included in learning outcomes, 50% said it seldom was, 4% said it was never included. When asked if their school put enough emphasis on IL, 48% said not at all, 33% said not quite.
The speaker identified that "MIL is not strongly represented in the legislation and Government policy documents for the secondary school". As noted above, coverage of IL was judged as inadequate by respondents to the survey. The National Curriculum Guidelines "does not seem a powerful tool for schools to set criteria for MIL". In concluding, the speaker noted that, considering the Icelandic population's high level of access to the internet, there was potential to develop MIL. They considered that developing a MIL framework (as suggested by Klingenberg) would be valuable.

Klingenberg, Andreas. (2012). Common Information Literacy Framework. A Model Draft. In C.R. Karisiddappa (Ed.), Information Control and Management in Digital Environment. A Festschrift in Honour of Prof. K.C. Panda, (pp. 447-454). New Delhi: Atlantic. This is his website (articles mainly in German) http://www.andreas-klingenberg.de/veroeffentlichungen.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: cat, harbour, Dubrovnik October 2014

Perceived Barriers in Relation to Health and Lifestyle Information among Icelanders #ecil2013

The penultimate talk in a session on workplace/ everyday IL, was Perceived Barriers in Relation to Health and Lifestyle Information among Icelanders by Ágústa Pálsdóttir at the European Conference on Information Literacy. I am afraid that I was by now feeling a bit weary, since the day started with my workshop (which I will blog later) and then a poster session (which I also participated in) and then a rather long session (and no lunch until 3.15pm!) Therefore I am unlikely to do this speaker justice.
The speaker was reporting on a study carried out in 2012, with a sample of 1200 Icelanders, which used a questionnaire to ask about information seeking. The respondents were categorised into enthusiastic, convential, contemporary and inactive searchers. There were some barriers which were very problematic to all of them i.e. difficulties getting away from home to seek information and cost of acquiring information. Overall, external barriers were seen as more problematic than internal ones. The barriers found most problematic by everyone was that it was difficult to find information with good advice about health protection, followed (I think) by information being hard to understand. The extent to which people experienced barriers varied with the categorisation.

These articles report on a similar, earlier study:
Pálsdóttir, Á. (2008). "Information behaviour, health self-efficacy beliefs and health behaviour in Icelanders' everyday life" Information Research, 13(1) paper 334. http://InformationR.net/ir/13-1/paper334.html
Pálsdóttir, Á. (2009). "Seeking information about health and lifestyle on the Internet" Information Research, 14(1) paper 389. http://InformationR.net/ir/14-1/paper389.html