Information Literacy as Process
by Audrey Conant, MEMA Information Skills Chair
"The trouble with kids today is that they don't know what to do when they don't know what to do."

Grant Wiggins. Assessment: Authenticity, Context and Validity. Phi Delta Kappan. V93. p. 202.

PROCESS: A systematic series of actions directed toward some end.

INFORMATION LITERACY: The internalization of the research process to the point of successful, flexible application. The ability to find and use knowledge to solve needs.

Changes in Education and the Workplace Re Process
Librarians and other teachers now exist in a climate of educational transfiguration. One crucial change revolves around a new importance for the learning of process. The number of facts is increasing exponentially, resulting in a frustration between coverage in depth or a broad perspective. And that perspective is more than a simple whole but a whole composed of numerous facets. For example:

The Hubble telescope crisis involved a series of "unknown unknowns," things that can "bite" you, and that required a wide array of problem-solving. See Adventure in Space chapter.

Church burnings open a Pandora's box of criminality: prejudice, greed, vandalism, unprincipled ambition. They have raised questions about ethics in reporting and insurance company policies. They have sparked inquiry into media reporting and the affective domain; altruism vs. desensitizing in response to consistent exposure to sensitive material. See The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 chapter. (Focus on: INTERNET RESEARCH)

The chemistry of a tire may be studied in depth; so may the chemistry and physics of deriving oil or components used in cement from used tires. These sciences gather meaning and importance when associated with the facets of related attitudes, legislation, health and ethics issues, global involvement, and creativity and inventiveness.

The scope and skills of the research process are powerful means of handling not only a wealth of information but of tackling a specific topic. Utilizing process strategies instead of trying to memorize more and more facts facilitates an overview, a feel for the complexity of a topic, and zeroing in on a compelling focus. Collaboration with others can then promote the association of explored aspects in a problem-solving manner. A serendipitous by-product is a lack of competitive atmosphere - the goal is win-win, regarding both subject matter and student inter-relationships. An analogy would be thinking through math concepts to approximate the results of complicated problems involving large numbers of figures. Using a calculator or spreadsheet to refine the estimation accurately puts the emphasis on analyzing the problem itself, and puts the manipulation of figures (facts) in a supportive, corroborative role.

The above chart, denoting how workplace standards are being revolutionized, was derived from information in articles by Trumbull and Mutch*. High-level problem-solving skills are being prized as natural resources once were, resulting in "Knowledge Management" and competency-based pay. Firms are developing databases not only of workers' diverse skills processes but how workers can apply them flexibly to unfamiliar job roles. Skills gaps are also registered and communicated as part of the "mapping" process. Learning responsibility is put directly on the shoulders of individual workers. Workers' initiatives in re-tooling, self-education, and continuing education are not only recorded but highly valued. Job security and automatic pay raises are being replaced by skills gains that provide both (albeit with job and career changes).

The impact on education? Clearly, flexible process skills is one factor. Information literacy's emphasis on individual command of flexible problem-solving procedures is another. Learner incentive is another, and is addressed in the following chapter on STUDENT INITIATIVE.

Information Skills as a Process for All Learning

The information literacy process has moved squarely to the center stage of educational goals. It is sometimes hard to see its role, so merged is it within the processes of language arts and those of other subject areas. And the role of librarian is not always clear. It is important that the librarian clarify what is inferred and shares the responsibililty of implementing that goal, contributing expertise as the schoolÍs information specialist. Classroom teachers and students need to identify the librarian as a leader regarding these developments. They need to feel that the librarian does not supervise a place but a program in a climate that embraces these goals: a program that takes place on the worldwide stage of information.

Developments Requiring Librarian Expertise and Leadership

Specific Responses to Leadership Opportunities
Assessing the Information Literacy PROCESS
How do we know where students are in their development of a personal, versatile information literacy process? Traditional testing connotes the assessment of 'cued' knowledge and procedure, sometimes in a context. If a student is successful, it is often assumed that such knowledge and procedure can be applied in diverse contexts and represents performance mastery. The development of innovative tools to assess process represents an effort to correct this presumption.

An "end performance" assessment could possibly encompasses this goal and all its underlying objectives. A study was conducted, for example, to see if a process-based performance test could measure higher order thinking skills.
This science performance assessment consisted of identifying mystery powders, which required students to apply learnings from an instructional unit. Each student's approach plan was assessed for its knowledge base. Self-monitoring and strategies were observed as students worked to identify the disguised chemical substances. Interviewers then asked them to explain the principles underlying their task. The evidence agreed with the hypothesis. Careful design was stressed for those considering similar studies. [ Baxter, G., Elder, A. and Glaser, R. (1995). Cognitive Analyss of a Science Performance Assessment. CSE Technical Report 398.]

An assessment form for "end performance" follows. It was designed to measure and to help students think how to choose and use outreach to apply new attitudes or knowledge gained during a unit on world-wide child labor issues. (The unit included data from an electronic child labor survey.) The form is a condensed journal, in essence, that includes decisions, timing, reflection, and self-assessment. The self assessment is at the bottom of this single page, inviting a review of the concrete clues above it of breakthroughs, snags, and reactions as well as a sweep of the whole. development of innovative tools to assess process represents an effort to correct this presumption.

CHILD LABOR ACTION PLAN
NAME(S):

GOAL: 
 Action Stages    When to Do       Date Done          Feedback after each stage
 
 
 
  
 

* = The state in your action plan that uses survey results in some way.
Report to class:
HOW DID I DO?
What went well? How did I handle obstacles? What changes did I make in my original plan? (Use the feedback column to help you.) HOw could the plan be improved?
The good news: class reports were at a high level and were well-received. They included several accounts of apprehensions that proved unfounded, frustrating time delays, and lots of vivid how-to hints. The students were as excited over the process as they were about the products. They were positively surprised about the adult support they received. The assignment and the tool proved appropriate.

The bad news: time was the culprit. The child labor survey results were delayed, causing the students to rely solely on their own research. They were good sports about this, but the educators' plans of blending the survey results with other research was thwarted. The time requirements of outreach plans, such as visiting stores ahead of time to get permission to place the appeal containers, appropriate times to make telephone calls, and students' belated realization that most of the action had to take place beyond school hours, resulted in some incompleted plans. Students were more used to teacher-instituted incremental deadlines than to independenty planning and executing projects. In-process teacher monitoring of the planning sheets had been intended but was not implemented. [This was partly due to traditional curriculum pressures.] Next time!

A broader process-based approach measures information literacy over the entire period of an inquiry, not just during an "end performance" A variety of innovative methods, suitable to a comprehensive overview as well as selected tasks, is used. [Note that even the concentrated science study included self-assessment, interviews, and observation.] The high school child labor study utilized a checklist, peer evaluation, and group-designed criteria as well as the self-monitored action plan. Brainstormed webs were created at three points in time, beginning, mid-point, and end, and assessed developmentally. (All three webs used the same focus: Child Labor.) Using research in role-playing and in developing a survey were assessed.

(Other appraisal descriptions in this document may cover just one part of a project or examine a single assessment method, as a means of clarification or to demonstrate beginning steps in applying a new measurement strategy. They should be considered as potential components of process-based, comprehensive assessment plans.)

Students can profit by reflecting upon their general progress while in the middle of researching.
Expect students to verbalize these successes and frustrations with a group, with a supervisor, with themselves. Librarians can precede this reflection by modeling; verbalizing their own current research strategies, successes, and problems for students. As feedback to these mid-point reflections, librarians can again model and verbalize strategies that pertain to identified needs. Such monitoring provides help when needed, and usually results in improved skills and better products.

Assessing a student's information literacy process automatically assesses the instructional program. A mid-point check could answer: has the student gathered or shown a proficiency in gathering appropriate and needed resources for an approved inquiry? Group or class results of this checkpoint might raise this consideration: Do the students have a clear picture of this 'proficiency' and its criteria? Do the criteria include breadth, depth, timed efficiency, use of specific resources? Do they reflect the primary values of the program design? Would the students benefit if the orientation were more explicit and explanatory? If they carried from the orientation a sheet with printed guidelines on one side and the criteria and accompanying rubrics on the other? The next mid-point check would reveal how effective changes were, if at all, and for whom.

Benefits

The benefit of consistent assessment of process within a project helps a student see growth of specific skills within unique structures as they look back on past performances. Performance is seen in positive terms, specific attributes are seen in context, with opportunity to improve still more as the project is resumed. Incentive is a natural result. Progress is measured differently, relating a studentÍs work to how far that student still has to go to reach an educational goal. This has a negative connotation and is usually more general. Both growth and progress are important. The significance of the specificity, do-ability, and positive growth aspects of in-process measurement contribute to a healthy balance of the two.

Caveat

Too much assessment can be distracting and counter-productive. Curiosity and quality may suffer if students research to a dominating assessment. Assessment must be secondary to the flow of what students are actually doing.

In-your-face measurements can cause an avoidance of risk-taking or challenging tasks so as to insure a positive assessment. Assessment can be designed, however, to reward risk-taking.

First Step: Reward Students for Paying Attention to Process
Research Process Assessment Tool, from Sampler IV Appendix B, adapted from a concept by Ellen Raider of Columbia University.

First Steps in Process Assessment That Guide Best and Poorest Students to Realistic Improvement

Give the 'A' student somewhere to go. When creating rubrics, make the next to highest the standard, and the highest describe a series of advanced options that include improving process, such as flexible use, use with unusual problems, high levels of Bloom's taxonomy that were not included in the 'A' standard. (Students who get undefined top grades first marking period tend to 'coast,' feeling that they have nothing to gain by expending effort, nothing to work for).

Give the poor student somewhere to go. Give credit for effort, using an adaptation of the above process coupon.

or

Join assessment of process WITH assessment of product. Let students understand that if they can explain their thinking, HOW they went about their task, their chances for a decent grade are improved. And when they explain their process and the HOWs, educators can often identify points of need or confusion. It's a win-win situation. This builds in help as well as hope. (Poor students with poor grades tend to give up and not try.)

Trumbull, Mark. "Skills Inching Out Job Titles as the Way to Establish Wages." Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 19, 1996 p 8
Mutch, David. "Knowledge Management: Key Untapped Resource at Many Firms: Skills." Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 8, 1996 p 9

August 1997
Maine Educational Media Associaton

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