Information literacy education in primary schools: A case study

This study focuses on teachers’ perspectives concerning information literacy teaching in two primary schools in Israel—one school that joined the national information and communications technology program and a second school that did not. The researchers used a qualitative research method during the 2015 academic year. Eighteen teachers were interviewed. The findings suggest that participation in the national information and communications technology program did not lead to the integration of information literacy in the school’s curriculum. A significant gap was discovered in both schools between the teachers’ perceptions—who understood the importance of teaching information literacy and its actual implementation.

The information literacy and continuous professional development practices of teachers at a Jewish Day School

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate how in-service teachers within the context of an American Jewish day school perceive, practice and develop Information Literacy (IL) as a sociocultural practice and through Continuing Professional Development (CPD). A research gap exists in relation to empirical studies which examine sociocultural IL practices and the CPD learning experiences of in-service teachers within the professional environment of their work. Two emergent and compatible frameworks for investigating teachers’ IL practices and CPD in context are identified and discussed within that context: the sociocultural approach and the interactive CPD model.

Design/methodology/approach

The research adopted an interpretivist phenomenological perspective. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with six teachers to explore their IL experiences. Questions addressed the participants’ previous background, the working culture of the school, approaches to learning and developing new knowledge, sources and methods of obtaining work-related information, IL practices and the differences between IL and CPD practices.

Findings

Although teachers value the role of IL in their professional lives and they have confidence in their performance of it, they remain confounded by the IL terminology. Within the teachers’ everyday working environment, the primacy of social and embodied information and the centrality of information sharing demonstrated the social and experiential nature of learning and the significance of contextualisation to IL development. The study found IL, CPD and learning to be inseparable, as they intersected within a single, organic situated learning practice of becoming an expert in context.

Originality/value

This study makes valuable contributions to theory by supplying empirical evidence of sociocultural IL practices, linking the currently disparate scholarships on IL, CPD and learning and providing suggestions for future research. In addition, the study demonstrates alternative avenues for developing teachers’ IL and offers recommendations for supporting their CPD.

Performing the school librarian: Using the Butlerian concept of performativity in the analysis of school librarian identities

This paper reports on a research study using the Butlerian notion of performativity in the analysis of school librarian identity. The purpose is to explore how librarians at secondary and upper-secondary schools perform their identities as school librarians. Fourteen in-depth interviews were conducted. The analysis was driven by the theoretical concepts of performative identity, recognizability and intelligibility. Performing identity was found to be part of six work-tasks: to express, to position, to make visible, to remind, to inform and to explain. In conclusion, the study contributes to research on school librarian challenges, pursuits and strategies when performing professional identity in relation to teachers. Focusing on the performative acts of school librarians can contribute to understandings of their everyday challenges and deepen the understanding of the profession.

Reinforcing information literacy development through a subject-focused resource-based project

This paper discusses the findings of research investigating the implementation of a resource-based school history project in Malaysian secondary schools. It seeks to understand how the project contributes towards students’ information literacy development. The study took place in selected secondary schools in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A total of 23 students and 5 teachers from four schools participated in the study, employing (a) student focus group interviews, (b) teacher individual interviews, (c) observation, and (d) document analysis as the data collection techniques. In general, although the history project is considered a “research” project by teachers and students, it is found to be a cursory information-gathering and information-compilation type of assignment, which is fully guided by the project guidelines or instructions. While teachers employ a mixture of teaching approaches in the project instruction, the efforts are concentrated on subject matter-related issues such as subject content and project instructions fulfillment. The larger learning experience such as information literacy and learning skills development, as well as research and report writing enhancement, appear to be overlooked in the instructions. The findings also show that (a) information literacy is loosely defined, (b) the “information gathering and information compilation” of the project task is of a superficial nature, and (c) inadequate guidance from teachers has resulted in low information literacy development among students. This study highlights the critical need to address information literacy in the education system, design resource-based assignments with a clear information literacy focus, and the importance of support from teachers for successful development. It provides a foundation for further research on the development of information literacy-focused resource-based school project assignments.

Information literacy for visually impaired teachers in Pakistan

There are more than 285 million blind and visually impaired people in the world, 90% of whom live in developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a study on visually impaired school teachers in Pakistan in order to examine how they identify, explore, select, organize, create, present, assess and apply information (IFLA’s Information Literacy Empowering Eight model) in teaching and everyday life. Interviews were conducted in January 2015 with 55 visually impaired teachers in 10 schools for the blind located in the province of Khyber PukhtunKhwa, Pakistan. The study also explores their ability to find, evaluate, and apply pedagogical information. Collected data revealed information on different aspects of information literacy skills. Although basic skills of the studied population were assessed; the study found that visually impaired teachers are highly skilled in terms of organizing the information and they prefer to take personal responsibility while searching for required information. They were found less skilled in using and apply new tools for information searching and lacking in ability to present the data effectively. This is the first research on the information literacy skills of visually impaired teachers in Pakistan. Results are useful for planners and experts to integrate IFLA’s E8 model of information literacy into several courses taught at the blind schools in order to enable the disadvantaged community to benefit from the information literacy skills.