Cited as: Chu, S.K.W., Rajagopal, S., & Lee, C.W.Y. (in press). Information literacy in higher education: Research students’ development in information search expertise. In Developing people’s information capabilities: fostering information literacy in educational, workplace and community contexts. Hepworth, M., and Walton, G. (Eds.). UK: Emerald Group Publishing.

Information Literacy in Higher Education: Research Students’ Development in Information Search Expertise

By Samuel Kai-Wah Chu, Sandhya Rajagopal and Celina Wing-Yi Lee

ABSTRACT

A comparative analysis of the results of two longitudinal studies conducted a decade apart, among research postgraduate students, with the purpose of understanding the progress in their information literacy skills, forms the content of this report. The analysis is based on the application of the Research and Information Search Expertise (RISE) model, which traces students’ progression across four stages of expertise. Such progression was measured across two dimensions of knowledge: that of information sources/databases and that of information search skills. Both studies adopted basic interpretive qualitative methods involving direct observation, interviews, think-aloud protocols and survey questionnaires, during each of the five interventions, which were spread over a one to one and half year period. Scaffolding training was provided at each meeting and data were collected to assess the influence of such training on development of search expertise. A comparison of the findings reveals that students in both studies advance in their information literacy skills largely in a similar manner. Scaffolding support was found to help both dimensions of knowledge and lack of one or the other type of knowledge could hinder their ability to find relevant sources for their research. The studies make evident the need for training programs for higher education students, to improve both their knowledge of information sources and their search techniques, tailor-made to closely correlate to their specific information needs. The studies provide insights into student behaviors in the development of information literacy skills and the RISE model offers a framework for application to other similar research.

Keywords:

Information search skills, information literacy, Novice-expert comparison, developmental studies, componential model of development, library training.

Category: Research

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this chapter is to report the findings of two longitudinal studies, performed a decade apart, which analyzed the development of information literacy (IL) skills among post-graduate students, specifically to understand how they advance in (1) their knowledge of sources/databases, and (2) their knowledge of information search skills. Information literacy (IL) in this context is defined as the, “ability to find, evaluate and use information in order to complete a task.” (Parkes & Walton, 2010, p. 34). The Research and Information Search Expertise (RISE) model, which relates development in research skills and corresponding development in information search skills, was designed during the course of the first study and subsequently applied to the second. Comparing the findings in the two studies helps in understanding the changes in approach to search expertise development, which in turn can be used to devise a mechanism for students to enhance their information literacy.

With exponential growth in availability of information, it has become increasingly important for information seekers in research-oriented higher education programs, which demand rigorous investigations and original academic contributions, to be able to effectively identify and access pertinent material, from a wide range of knowledge repositories. However, studies reveal that they are unable to perform effective information searches (Chu & Law, 2008; Fleming-May & Yuro, 2009; Green & Macauley, 2007). This makes post-graduate (PG) students ideal subjects in research that explores information search behaviors.

The key subjects of the investigations in both studies were a mix of post-graduate research students, from the faculty of education and the department of engineering, and on both occasions, their information search capabilities were observed over a one to one and half year period with the objective of identifying critical changes that would indicate qualitative progress in their search expertise.

LITERATURE REVIEW

According to Shen (2007) two of the main difficulties online information seekers face are: compiling and focusing widely scattered information on a specific research need and in identifying and retrieving the most relevant information sources. Expert search skills are required to overcome such difficulties. (Larkin, McDermott, Simon, & Simon, 1980) consider expertise research one possible method of helping novices becoming experts. They said, “Our growing understanding of an expert's knowledge and the kinds of processes an expert uses when solving problems enables us to begin to explore the learning processes needed to acquire suitable knowledge and problem-solving processes.” (p. 1,342).

General expertise studies can be classified into two categories: (i) Novice-expert comparison and (ii) Developmental studies. Brand-Gruwel, Wopereis and Vermetten (2005) identified specific traits in information experts, such as their attention to information problem solving, assessing the quality of information, etc., which distinguished them from novices in the search process. The exclusive manner in which expert searchers derive their search terms, for example, by better use of synonyms was revealed by Hsieh-Yee (1993). Literature is replete with studies comparing expertise of novices and experts (Chiu, Chu, Ting, & Yau, 2011; Hölscher & Strube, 2000; Sihvonen & Vakkari, 2004; Tabatabai & Shore, 2005).

While comparative studies differentiate the expert from the novice, it reveals little about the process of transformation of a novice to an expert. To understand this transformation, a developmental approach to the study of expertise is indispensable (Campbell & Di Bello, 1996). Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1980), in a developmental analysis of chess players, airline pilots, etc., identified five stages to describe behavioral changes as novices became experts. In their (1986) book, they named these as: Novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient and expert. Their model however is unable to explain why the changes occur and expected similar development paths across expertise areas. Campbell and others propose instead that developmental sequences are domain specific (Campbell & Bickhard, 1992; Campbell, Brown, & DiBello, 1992; Campbell & Di Bello, 1996). In their study, they distinguished seven levels of development in learning and concluded that a longitudinal, developmental study has practical application for skill development. These and other developmental studies (Halttunen, 2003; Halttunen & Järvelin, 2005; Vakkari, Pennanen, & Serola, 2003; Yuan, 1997) show that there is progress of knowledge in learners, in all domains, which enables them to advance through ascending levels of expertise.

METHODOLOGY

The two longitudinal studies were conducted, at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), in the years 2000 and 2010, consisting of twelve and eight research postgraduate students (PG) respectively. Data in both studies were collected through periodic survey questionnaires, notes during direct observations, recordings of think-aloud protocols and transcriptions of participant interviews. Both studies ran over a period of 12 to 18 months and consisted of five interventions or meetings with a follow-up interview after the fifth meeting. During the interviews, students were encouraged to identify changes in their search methods and discuss factors that had led to improvements. This approach can hence be regarded as a basic interpretive qualitative study, described by Merriam (2002) as a type of study in which, “you seek to discover and understand phenomenon, a process, the perspectives and worldviews of the people involved or a combination of these. Data are collected through interviews, observations, or document analysis. These data are inductively analyzed to identify the recurring patterns or common themes that cut across the data.” (p. 6-7).

In each study, during five research meetings that were designed similarly, the students searched the search engines/databases twice on their own, followed by a fifteen to twenty minute training session with an expert searcher. This model of intermittent training is closely modeled on Vygotsky’s (1978) idea of scaffolding in the “zone of proximal development” which is the difference between what students can do with assistance and what they can accomplish on their own. Scaffolding refers to the assistance offered to students that enables them to successfully complete a task (Halttunen & Järvelin, 2005).

During the first study, data gathered from the surveys, taped data from think-aloud sessions transcribed into English, written data from direct observations and interview data were coded into Excel sheets according to a coding guide designed especially for the study. Assessments of advancement in search expertise were made using a grounded theory approach, to deduce the various stages of information expertise from collected data. Grounded theory is defined by Creswell (2009) as, “a strategy of inquiry in which the researcher derives a general, abstract theory of a process, action or interaction grounded in the views of the participants.” (p.13). This allowed the identification of students at specific stages in the model, commensurate with their development in information literacy.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Research Goals

The primary goals of both longitudinal studies discussed in this chapter were to understand the changes in information needs of students due to (i) development in knowledge of sources/ databases and (ii) the development of information search skills. Findings in both studies, indicate that the participants were initially novices in both areas of investigation, but their search skills progressed along with improved subject knowledge during the one-year course of the study.

Stages in Information Needs

Students in the initial stage of their research, sought general information sources on a subject area but were more specific in their search on gaining better understanding in their topic of research. As Education student BW in the fourth meeting of the first study said,

There are two steps in my information search. First, I wanted all kinds of materials on scientific literacy because I did not know what to focus on for my research. Now, I am at my second step. I know what I will research and so I only want very specific information sources. (Chu & Law, 2007a, p. 33)

Student CA in the second study, at the first meeting, posed his understanding of the search process as a question: “So the search process is that I start with broad topic and then keep narrow down my search, is that right?”

Students also advanced further by searching for more recent material in their topic of research. At the interview after the fifth meeting, student CD in the first study, regarded the understanding and the knowledge of finding the latest information sources on her research area as the biggest change in her information search during the entire research period (Chu, 2005).

A Componential Model of Development in Information Search Expertise

During the first study, a componential model for Research and Information Search Expertise (RISE) was constructed (see Figure 1). Changes in students’ information needs- from generic to specific to current - is represented within the triangle in the center of the figure. Simultaneously, their development through the four stages in searching expertise – Novice to Advanced Beginner to Competent to Proficient – is represented in the column on the left of the triangle.

Figure 1: Students’ growth and development in research expertise and in information expertise

(Chu & Law, 2008, p. 170)

First stage: Novice level of information search expertise

At the start of both studies, students were either overwhelmed by the number of databases or failed to realize there were so many. Many were frustrated at their inability to identify and use search features and symbols specific to each database. These observations in the studies can be equated to Kuhlthau’s (2004) “stage of confusion,” in her information search process model, used to describe a student’s initial stage in the information search process. For example, in the first study, student YH at the second meeting remarked:

When I first used the library system, it was very confusing to me. There were so many sources and databases available. Many seemed to be irrelevant to me. I didn’t know what contained what. (Chu & Law, 2008, p. 169)

Similar behaviors were noted in the second study. WM said during the first meeting:

“Just frustrated that every time I searched, I cannot even get one or two [results]… different databases have different kinds of tips, every time you go into the database you have to look into the tips to see if you [need to] use bracket, double quote, or what sort of subject term, or title search, or keywords.”

In both studies, students’ familiarity of search types were limited to primarily keyword and subject searches. In the first study many of them made mistakes even with these two basic search methods. For example, instead of using controlled vocabulary exclusive to the library catalog, students used phrases they considered to be indicative of subject headings when they performed subject searches, implying a lack of knowledge of its mechanism. (Chu & Law, 2008).

Second stage: Advanced beginner level of information search expertise

At this stage, which can be termed the “stage of understanding” (Kuhlthau, 2004) , students began to gain more knowledge of available sources/databases and acquired better search skills. In the first study, student CD at the third meeting said:

I have learned how to use Dialog@Carl and ERIC to find journal articles, and the Dissertation Abstracts Online Database to locate theses. In the past, I mainly focused on books for my research, but now I will use other types of sources like dissertations. This is a very important understanding. (Chu & Law, 2008, p. 171)

In the second study, when asked about important learning regarding information sources or search techniques at the end of the second meeting, CC responded with names of two databases : WorldCat and NDLTD and explained her learning about searching on Google:

Actually I have not used the advanced search of Google in the past. That was something new that I can actually search within a domain.

They also better understood the purposes of search operators and the kinds of information they retrieved. Student HL from the first study said:

In the beginning, I did not know how to use search operators like truncation, proximity,

wildcards, and parentheses. …After learning the importance of these features, I used

them in my search. For example, I would add/omit certain search terms and connect

the terms with operators. (Chu & Law, 2007b, p. 304)

KR from the second study noted at the first meeting that, “although I knew the Boolean Operator “OR” before, I didn’t use it well." According to him his learning about search operators were the “OR” Boolean operator and the “Times cited” and “Related records” search techniques.

During the first study, two distinct aspects of learning were noticeable at the second stage: (1) the distinction between keyword and subject search and, (2) the basics of constructing a statement for a keyword search. An observed feature common to both studies was, in the Novice stage, students used simple English words to construct search phrases and in this second stage, they constructed statements that were more sophisticated, involving the linkage of search terms with a logical use of search operators. This improved the quality of retrievals.

Third stage: Competent level of information search expertise

At this stage, students had acquired good knowledge of the core groups of sources/databases, and knew for which purposes they should use them. In the first study student CD, at the fifth meeting said:

Because of my familiarity with many more databases than before, I now know how to access much more information than in the past. This has helped me to be more comprehensive in my information search. So it has provided much contribution to my research. (Chu & Law, 2005, p.635)

In the second study, student CA during the second meeting, while in this stage of learning, understood that, “ProQuest is mainly for Theses…” and student CH during meeting three, learned how to “… find more articles in ISI Web of Knowledge …” and hence “ .. use it in future for my own research”.

Having gained an in-depth understanding of core search operators for keyword searches, students employed search operators such as parenthesis and proximity, synonyms and alternative terms, apart from the basic AND, OR and truncation operators as explained by student BW during meeting five, in the first study:

Commands like truncations and proximity operators are very useful. For example, a search on qualitative interview will miss a lot of records, but adding a proximity operator between the two words will find a lot more. (Chu & Law, 2008, p. 172)

Student KR from the second study at the fifth meeting, expressed his initial inability to use the proximity search operator effectively, his lack of understanding that this operator is database-specific, and how he had learned these during the course of the study.

The finding that students in general make more use of search commands and features as their search experience increased is consistent with Vakkari et al. (2003), Halttunen (2003), and Halttunen & Jarvelin (2005). Because of self-sufficiency in constructing efficient search statements, retrievals were more relevant and they became more information literate. Student LM from the first study explained how his improvement in information literacy helped progress better in his research, overall.

The improvement in my information search skills has much influence on the conceptual framework of my research. Originally my research looked at several perspectives of teacher development - critical, practical, and technical. My improved search skills have helped me find information sources on a new and emerging perspective - the learning perspective… This new perspective encompasses the three original perspectives I have been working on. Now I have multi-perspectives from which I could look at the research findings… The improvement in my information search skills has thus sped up the entire process of finishing my PhD research by several months. (Chu & Law, 2008, p. 172)

Fourth stage: Proficient level of information search expertise

The two main components that define this fourth level of expertise are:

(1) familiarity with different types of databases and