Information literacy in employability training: the experience of Inverclyde Libraries. Evaluating a training programme

The Scottish Information Literacy Project: working with partners to create an information literate Scotland Dr John Crawford Information literacy in employability training: the experience of Inverclyde Libraries. Evaluating a training programme Librarians’ Information Literacy Annual Conference Limerick Strand Hotel 29 th -31 st March 2010

Who are we?

Project objectives
to develop an information literacy framework, linking primary, secondary and tertiary education to lifelong learning including workplace and adult literacies agendas
Advocacy on behalf of information literacy for education and the wider community
Working with information literacy champions both UK and worldwide
Researching and promoting information literacy in the workplace
Identifying and working with partners, both in education and the wider community
Researching the role of information literacy in continuing professional development
Researching the health and media literacies agenda

Information literacy in the workplace study Dec.2007- Jan.2008 – key findings
The traditional ‘library’ view of information as deriving from electronic and printed sources only is invalid in the workplace and must include people as sources of information
The public enterprise with its emphasis on skills and qualifications is a fertile area for further investigation and developmental work
Advanced Internet training extends employees’ information horizons
A skill and qualifications based agenda is an important pre-condition
Most interviewees viewed public libraries as irrelevant for anything other than recreational purposes
Information literacy training programmes must be highly focused on the target audience
An understanding of what constitutes information literacy is widespread in the workplace but is often implicit rather than explicit and is based on qualifications, experience, and networking activities
Organizations which access a wide range of information, of high quality, including sources outwith their organization, will make the best informed decisions

Inverclyde
Inverclyde Council – existed since 1996
Third smallest council in Scotland
Population of 80,000 mostly in 3 communities: Port Glasgow, Greenock and Gourock, concentrated in one urban area
Relatively prosperous rural hinterland
Formerly dependent on heavy industry but now reliant on electronics and computing industries
Source : General Register Office for Scotland (2009)

Employment situation
Unemployment rate in March 2007 was 8%. Cf (5% in Scotland as a whole)
Above average proportion of 16-19 year olds not in employment, education or training
Youth employment and skills agenda
Areas of multiple deprivation in South West Greenock, East Central Greenock and Port Glasgow
Employability training focuses on the above areas
Source: The Inverclyde Workforce Plus Quarterly Performance bulletin January 2008

Employment forecast
The overall number of jobs in Inverclyde is expected to fall by 600 (-2%) by 2017, in contrast to growth of 4% in Scotland as a whole
The only sectors forecast to grow are financial & business services and health & education, while the largest decline will be in manufacturing
People will be required across all occupations to replace those that leave through retirement or occupational mobility. This means that, over the next 10 years, there will be more than 20,000 job opportunities to be filled in Inverclyde
Large numbers of jobs will be created in administration, customer services and sales, occupations associated with services
Nine in ten of these replacement jobs will require at least basic qualifications; while a quarter will require degree level qualifications.
Source: The Inverclyde Workforce Plus Quarterly Performance bulletin January 2008

Library services
Service has 7 libraries three of which are in the main urban area in Greenock, Port Glasgow and Gourock
Supports lifelong learning in the community through computing and other classes which take place at six learning centres located in the libraries
Computer based classes run in partnership with James Watt College, the University of the West of Scotland, Community Learning or the libraries themselves

The courses
Inverclyde Libraries ran two identical employability training courses in late Spring-early summer of 2009 funded by the Fairer Scotland Fund – ten weeks, two hours a week
Aimed at people with poor employability and ICT skills of working age
Basic computing skills taught and included an identifiable Internet skills component to help learners to meet their health, finance and employability needs
Course content designed by tutors and Community Learning and Development
Recruitment through local newspaper, outreach activities, open day, Job Centre Plus
8-12 attended each course . Ages early 20s t0 80s – majority women

Learning life histories
It aims to situate and understand people’s learning in their life experiences including, personal motivation and ambition, family life, work experience, the environment in which they live and their previous education
Learning issues cannot be properly understood and addressed unless these factors are known
It is particularly appropriate to adult learners.
A flexible methodology – questions are based round the above factors. Can be compared with the CERLIM Longitude 2 Project for evaluating the People’s network

The questions
Approximate age
Where they heard about the course
Previous work and life experience
Current/recent job if appropriate
School/other qualifications
Why did he/she decide to do the course
Is he/she undertaking any other study/learning
What did you expect to learn
What did you learn
What do you think of the course
Have you become more confident about finding information and, if so, in what ways
Do you have any problems in learning
What are you working towards – long term aims
Any thing the interviewee want to say/ask

Analysing the data 1
Five interviewees –all women and no younger people
Attracting young, low skill people an important issue
Previous work experience focused on service industries – catering, hospitality, laundries
interviewees were ‘people people’ who benefit from social interaction
Family and friends were the main motivation for joining the course
Personal social development is another factor which is closely linked to employability aspirations - not easy to separate the two
Recreational activities such as holiday planning and Internet shopping also figure
All the interviewees had left school with only basic skills and none has post school qualifications
Negative school education experiences

Analysing the data 2
Quality of the tutors a key factor
Time management an issue
Health issues were mentioned by three interviewees
Staff very willing to engage with the training programme - not always the case

Health issues
In Inverclyde the average male life expectancy is 70.3 years, this is almost 5% less than the Scottish average and is the second lowest male life expectancy in Scotland, (October 2005)
Alcohol related health issues are 25% above the Scottish average for Inverclyde and 126% above for the SIMD (Scottish Indices of Multiple Deprivation) areas
Deaths attributable to smoking are 28% above the Scottish average and 236% above in SIMD areas.
Hospital admissions for heart disease and strokes are respectively 65% and 56% higher than the Scottish average in SIMD areas.
First hospital admissions for psychiatric treatment are above the Scottish average, by 37% Inverclyde wide and by 197% in the SIMD areas
Source: Inverclyde Health Working Group (2006)

Course content
Information literacy content – 30%-60%
Tutor feels emphasis is moving towards IL
Interviewees appreciated value of IL for both occupational and recreational purposes
Useful emphasis on health awareness and personal financial management
Need to introduce IPR and Internet safety issues
All interviews demonstrated an understanding of what IL is
Advanced Internet searching not well understood
Confidence building main impact - linked to sensitive training

Conclusions (1)
Clear need for employability training with an emphasis on information literacy
Adult literacies trainers do not know about learning materials developed by librarians
Librarians largely ignorant of valuable IL training work done by adult literacies trainers
Targeted recruitment is critical and Job Centre Plus should be more involved
Learners do not separate out vocational learning from personal social development
A need for more lifestyle orientated training with a focus on health and financial literacies
Training should be targeted on potential employment in financial and business services and health and education

Conclusions (2)
Health information training is very important for both employability and lifestyle training
Course schedule and planning – bite sized learning for men?
Introduce copyright and Internet safety
Sensitivity in training a key issue
Support from government policy – e.g. Digital Britain www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/digital_britain_interimreportjan09.pdf

Community Learning and Development
Strengths
Strong commitment to inclusion, equality and fairness with example of innovative and effective work with disadvantaged individuals and groups
Learning programmes that are flexible and tailored to meet the needs of learners
Good quality of youth work and the relationships with young people
The high degree of responsiveness to the needs of adult learners
The improvements made in community capacity building
Partnership working remains a strength in the sector
Aspects for improvement
Demonstrating the outcomes of CLD provision and tracking improvements over time
Ensuring that planning is needs-led and outcomes focuses
Source: Improving Scottish education report (HM Inspectorate of Education 2009 pp. 73-78)

Building on success (1)
Quality indicator 4 –Learners’ experiences recommends inter alia...
Public library services should promote and deliver learning in their communities...
The services to learners should be widely publicised and regular introductory sessions should be arranged.
Entitlements to the public should include:
Support for the development of information literacy and digital literacy to enable access and use of information services
Community learning and literacy classes, including taster sessions and progression through learning partnerships
Source: Building on success: a public library quality improvement matrix for Scotland (Scottish Library and Information Council 2007).

Building on success (2)
Questions to ask are:
In what ways does the library environment promote learning?
To what extent do staff encourage learning?
In what ways are the needs of various learners addressed?
What opportunities are there for progression through partnerships?
Clearly Inverclyde performs well against all the components of this indicator.
Source: Building on success: a public library quality improvement matrix for Scotland (Scottish Library and Information Council 2007).

Some further information (1)
Crawford, John and Irving (2008) Going beyond the ‘library’: the current work of the Scottish Information Literacy Project. Library and information research, (32) 102, pp . 29-37 http://www.lirg.org.uk/lir/ojs/index.php/lir/article/view/89
Crawford, John and Irving (2009) Information literacy in the workplace: a qualitative exploratory study, JOLIS , (41 )pp. 29-38 http://lis.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/41/1/29?etoc
McDonald, Natalie and Keenan, Peter (2009) The ‘stuff beyond Google: information literacy in a corporate setting . http://www.information-online.com.au/sb_clients/iog/bin/iog_programme_you_may_be_right_C1.cfm?vm_key=8EDF7462-D5A6-FFAA-AB89D511D74817DA
Crawford, John et al, (2008) Use of information in the Scottish Government, Library & information update, Dec., pp. 48-49
Interview with Philip Pothen, formerly of JISC, 28.11.08 about the work of the Project http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2009/02/podcast71johncrawfordchristineirving.aspx

Some further information (2)
Irving, Christine. (2010), Collecting case studies / exemplars of good practice to enrich The National Information Literacy Framework (Scotland). Library & information research . Forthcoming.
Crawford, John and Irving, Christine (2010) The Scottish Information Literacy Project and school libraries. Aslib proceedings . Forthcoming.
Crawford, John and Irving, Christine (2010?) Information literacy in employability training: the experience of Inverclyde Libraries. Submitted to journal .
Review article on the work of the Project to be written

Contact details
Dr. John Crawford,
21 Polbae Crescent,
Eaglesham.
Glasgow G76 0LW
Tel 01355 302851

[email_address]
Project website www.caledonian.ac.uk/ils/
Project blog http://caledonianblogs.net/information-literacy/

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Information literacy in employability training: the experience of Inverclyde Libraries. Evaluating a training programme

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Information literacy in employability training: the experience of Inverclyde Libraries. Evaluating a training programme — Presentation Transcript