This paper reports on findings from a phenomenography study investigating how undergraduate students learn to use information while simultaneously engaging with course content. This type of learning has been theorized as “informed learning” (Bruce, 2008), a pedagogy grounded in phenomenography that emphasizes the role that “information” plays in learning. Part of a larger study, this project applied variation theory (Marton, Runesson, and Tsui, 2004) in the analysis of a lesson aimed at enabling student awareness of language and gender issues, while simultaneously learning the techniques used to analyze the progression of a research topic. The variations made by students during post-lesson interviews revealed three types of lived experiences. The results show that learning to use information in context is not simply a matter of focusing on both aspects of learning, but suggests that teachers must determine and apportion the appropriate balance between the “how” and “what” aspects in classroom lessons.

1. Clarence Maybee
Gateway Doctoral Program jointly offered by San Jose State University & Queensland University of Technology
Variations in Student Experiences of Learning to Use Information in Context

2. Information Literacy
Recent scholarship
Learning to use information should happen in the context of learning about a subject (ex: Bruce, 2008 Lloyd, 2010)
Practice in Higher Education
Using information is typically taught as generic skills or techniques that do not align with how students learn (ex: Limberg, 2008; Lloyd and Williamson, 2008; Maybee, 2007; Webber & Johnson, 2000)

3. Informed Learning
•
Grounded in a relational view of learning
•
Suggests strategies for helping learners to focus on information use and subject content simultaneously (Bruce, 2008)
A simultaneous focus was noted by Lupton’s research (2008) to be a characteristic of more sophisticated ways of experiencing the relationship between information literacy and learning.

4. Studying Information Use
Phenomenography What Aspect of Learning Direct Object How Aspect of Learning: Act Indirect Object (Marton & Booth, 1997, pp. 84-85)
Informed Learning Subject Content Information Use (a subset of how) Lupton, 2008

5. Research Questions

How do teachers and learners experience lessons designed to simultaneously focus on using information and subject content?
Sub-parts of question:

In lessons focused on learning to use information and subject content simultaneously:

what are the qualitative differences between the teacher’s intentions for the lesson and the construction of the lesson as it takes place in the classroom?

what are the qualitative differences between the construction of the lesson as it takes place in the classroom and the students’ experiences of using information and subject content after the lesson has concluded?

6. Methods
Participation: Teacher and 15 students in an upper-level undergraduate writing course about language and gender
Data Collection focused on collecting data related to the intended, enacted, and lived objects of learning described by variation theory (Marton, Runesson and Tsui, 2004)
Analysis: Variation theory was applied to analyze interview and observation transcripts (Marton and Booth, 1997; Marton and Morris, 2002; Marton and Tsui, 2004)
Note: Three key studies informed the methods used in my study: Rovio-Johansson, 1999; Runesson, 1999; Vikström, 2008

7. Analyzing the Data

Identifying:
Critical features; and how they were varied (Marton, Runesson and Tsui, 2004)
How and What of Learning (Marton & Booth, 1997, pp. 84-85)
Shifting focus on the how and what of learning as critical features were varied

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Critical Features
Enacted
Object
New Way of Learning
Imitating
Example
Essays
Instructions
for Any
Assignment
Themes as structural and unifying elements
Research Trajectory
Claims made for the seminal text
Type of academic paper
Critique as an element of argumentation
Organizational elements
Seminal text as feature of paper
Thesis as feature of paper
Paper topics

9. How and What of Learning
Enacted
Object
New Way of Learning
Imitating
Example
Essays
Instructions
for Any
Assignment
Direct Object
Topics Related to the Course
Perspectives on Topics
Research Trajectory
Generic Techniques
Indirect Object
Research Trajectory
Research Trajectory
Research Trajectory
Generic Techniques
Act
Analyzing and Interpreting
Analyzing and Interpreting
Applying
Applying

10. Shifting Focus
Enacted Lesson
•Paper Topics
•Claims made for seminal text
New Way of Learning
•Research Trajectory
•Claims made for seminal text
•Themes as structural and unifying elements

11. Thank you
Questions & Comments
Clarence Maybee
cmaybee@purdue.edu

12. References
Bruce, C. S. (2008). Informed learning. Chicago, IL: American Library Association.
Limberg, L. (2008). What matters? Shaping meaningful learning through information literacy. Libri, 58(2), 82-91.
Lloyd, A. (2010). Information literacy landscapes: Information literacy in education, workplace and everyday contexts. Oxford: Chandos.
Lloyd, A. and Williamson, K. (2008). Towards an understanding of information literacy in context: Implications for research. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 40(1), 3-12.
Lupton, M. (2008). Information literacy and learning. Blackwood, S. Aust.: Auslib Press.
Marton, F. and Booth, S. (1997). Learning and awareness. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Marton F., and Morris, P. (2002). What matters? Discovering critical conditions of classroom learning (pp. 133-143). Goteborg, Sweden: ACTA Universitatis Gothoburgensis.
Marton, F., and Tsui, A. (2004). Classroom discourse and the space of learning. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Associates.
Maybee, C. (2007). Understanding our student learners: A phenomenographic study revealing the ways that undergraduate women at Mills College understand using information. Reference Services Review, 35(3), 452-462.
Rovio-Johansson, A. (1999). Being good at teaching: Exploring different ways of handling the same subject in higher education. . ACTA Universitatis Gothoburgensis).
Runesson, U. (1999). Teaching as constituting a space of variation. 8Th EARLI-Conference, Göteborg, Sweden.
Vikström, A. (2008). What is intended, what is realized, and what is learned? Teaching and learning biology in the primary school classroom. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 19(3), 211-233.
Webber, S., and Johnson, B. (2000). Conceptions of information literacy: New perspectives and implications. Journal of Information Science, 26(6), 387-397.