1. Information Literacy
By Janet Parker
May 2010

2. There is a crack in everything,
that’s how the light gets in
Leonard Cohen
Wisdom begins in wonder
Socrates

3. Essential Questions
 Does information lead to knowledge and wisdom?
 How has technology affected Information
Literacy?
 Has technology created a paradigm shift in critical
thinking?

4. My IL Research Pathway
 Definition
 Information Literacy Instruction
 Critical Thinking
 Information Literacy Behaviors
 Credibility and Cognitive Authority
 Information use for decision making

5. Information Literacy (IL)
 Understanding how to access and use
information
 American Library Association definition:
“To be information literate, a person must be
able to recognize when information is
needed and have the ability to locate,
evaluate, and use effectively the needed
information.”

6. IL skills for Life Long Learning
 2005 IFLA, UNESCO and NFIL definition
“… it is a prerequisite for participating effectively in
the information society, and is part of the basic
human right of life long learning.”
 2008 AASL Standards for 21st Century
Learner
 9 Information Literacy Standards
 Information Literacy is at the core of lifelong
learning

7. Information Literacy Instruction
 1980s frameworks for ILI field
 Flow of information from an event through
documentation and analysis
 Controlled vocabularies and their use
 Differences in production, analysis and use of
information in various disciplines
 And critical thinking regarding information
research tool selection and use, selection and
use of data and other research materials

8. Key points in ILI to support my research
 Research shows less is more
 Too much information results in cognitive overload.
 Learner Centered rather than service
 Assess the learner’s needs and instruct to those needs
 Active learning where learners have opportunies to
explore and discover answers for themselves
 Key questions to focus on critical thinking about
the sources, purpose, and content of information
 Better and faster technology doesn’t lead to better
teaching and learning

9. Critical Thinking
“Process of conceptualizing, applying,
analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating
information gathered from, or generated by
observation, experience, reflection,
reasoning or communication, as a guide to
belief and action.”

10. Information Literacy Behaviors
 Describes the ways in which humans
interact with information; ways people seek
and utilize information

11. Key points in ILB
to support my research
 Most information is absorbed in daily living
 People commit little energy and effort to seeking
information and under search for quality information
 Problem solving and wondering is a more normal
process to seek information then the process of
researching and writing a paper
 Technology offers speed and ease of use, while
otherwise replicating previous social structures and
interactions

12. Credibility and Cognitive Authority
We construct knowledge in two ways
first hand experience
second hand ideas from others
 Our judgments of authority of information
is based on our accumulated beliefs,
existing knowledge, and prior experience.
 Assessment of information is made not
from outside sources but from the person’s
information seeking goals and motivations.

13. Information Use for Decision Making
 Superior decision making does not require
complex processes. Less is more (again!)
 Simple decision processes in the right
environment improve performance by:
 Helping us ignore irrelevant information
 Speeding decision

14. Ecological Rationality Model
Not step-by-step method for decision
making
Adaptive toolbox: instead have a collection
of cognitive heuristics and adaptive
processes that we use consciously and
intuitively to solve problems

15. Adaptive Toolbox
 Fast and frugal decision making. Time and energy
is minimized.
 Ignore information that is irrelevant and focus on
most reliable sources of information.
 Memory-based heuristics
 Recognition provides cue for adaptive decision making
 Fluency or ease of information processing influences
our confidence, judgment, and decision making.

16. Essential Answers
 How has technology affected Information
Literacy?
 Has technology created a paradigm shift in
critical thinking?
 Does information lead to knowledge and
wisdom?

17. My Library Literature Search
Strategies next to IL Behaviors
 Encyclopedia
of Library and
Information Science
 Looked for key articles
under “information”
 Recognized
“encyclopedia” as an
authority
 Ignored information
that was not relevant
to my topic

18. Search Strategies
 Read key articles for
overview on IL field
 Helped to focus
research
 Simplified and speeded
research process by
 search for information that
I recognized as similar to
my questions and
 fluency in looking only
at articles with vocabulary
and concepts I understood

19. Search Strategies
 In articles found
citations for primary
source of authors and
websites
 Direct link to articles
on websites
 Technology assisted
with speed and use
in accessing articles
and websites