Connecting with Educators: Science Teachers and Interactive Video Retrieval

Given the prevalence of digital resource use in education, it is critical to understand teachers’ interactions and perceptions when retrieving digital video for instructional purposes. The overarching objective of the present study was to examine how user-centric measures varied between different groups of science teachers, formed on certain user characteristics. An experimental methodology, including a set of interactive search experiments with actual users, was employed to explore these research objectives. Findings showed influences in interactive video retrieval tied to user characteristics, such as gender, age, and educational context. Examining teachers’ use and perceptions of digital video provides system designers and information professionals understanding that can contribute to more effective resources.ye

Enhancing Classroom Instruction with Online News

Purpose Investigate how school teachers look for informational texts for their classrooms. Access to current, varied, and authentic informational texts improves learning outcomes for K-12 students, but many teachers lack resources to expand and update readings. The Web offers freely-available resources, but finding suitable ones is time-consuming. This research lays the groundwork for building tools to ease that burden. Methodology This paper reports qualitative findings from a study in two stages: (1) a set of semi-structured interviews, based on the Critical Incident Technique, eliciting teachers’ information-seeking practices and challenges; and (2) observations of teachers using a prototype teaching-oriented news search tool under a think-aloud protocol. Findings Teachers articulated different objectives and ways of using readings in their classrooms; goals and self-reported practices varied by experience level. Teachers struggled to formulate queries that are likely to return readings on specific course topics, instead searching directly for abstract topics. Experience differences did not translate into observable differences in search skill or success in the lab study. Originality and Value There is limited work on teachers’ information-seeking practices, particularly on how teachers look for texts for classroom use. This paper describes how teachers look for information in this context, setting the stage for future development and research on how to support this use case. Understanding and supporting teachers looking for information is a rich area for future research, due to the complexity of the information need and the fact that teachers are not looking for information for themselves

EFFECT OF INCREASING LITERACY SKILLS TO IMPROVE INMATE BEHAVIOR: A QUANTITATIVE STUDY

This study examines the effect of increasing literacy skills during incarceration to improve adult inmate behavior, defined as a reduction in disciplinary reports received by participants. Male offenders, 18 years or older, housed in the Iowa Department of Corrections between July 1, 2017 – June 30, 2019 who completed two or more TABE Reading assessments met the inclusion criteria of the study. Multiple regression analyses were run to predict the correlation between the number of disciplinary infraction reports (dependent variable) each inmate received in a correlating timeframe of a TABE Reading assessment (independent variable). The results show that improved literacy skills are not significantly correlated to a decrease in disciplinary infraction reports

Les compétences informationnelles des futurs enseignants québécois sur le Web

Bien que les apprenants québécois de tous les niveaux d’éducation cherchent majoritairement vers le Web pour trouver de l’information dans le cadre de leur formation, bon nombre d’entre eux présentent des difficultés pour obtenir celle dont ils ont besoin. Face à cette nouvelle réalité, les enseignants actuels et futurs ont certes pour mission de développer les compétences informationnelles des apprenants, à savoir leurs compétences de recherche, d’évaluation et d’utilisation de l’information, mais sont-ils pour autant bien préparés pour le faire? La présente étude vise donc à vérifier si les futurs enseignants québécois possèdent les compétences nécessaires pour chercher, évaluer et utiliser de l’information pour répondre à leurs propres besoins informationnels et s’ils sont adéquatement formés pour enseigner ces compétences à leurs élèves. Afin d’atteindre cet objectif général de recherche, la présente thèse s’appuie sur un cadre conceptuel élaboré autour de trois éléments complémentaires : le concept de compétences informationnelles, le processus de recherche et de traitement de l’information et les méthodes d’enseignement des compétences informationnelles en milieu scolaire. Pour atteindre les objectifs spécifiques de recherche qui ont découlé de la synthèse de ces éléments, cette thèse a eu recours à une méthodologie mixte mariant sondage, entrevues et observations auprès de 353 futurs enseignants d’une université québécoise. Dans un premier temps, nous avons décrit et analysé leurs pratiques déclarées et effectives en recherche et traitement d’information sur le Web. Les principaux résultats concernant la recherche d’information démontrent que la majorité des futurs enseignants font figure de novices alors qu’ils planifient peu ou pas leurs recherches, emploient des stratégies de recherche basiques et diversifient peu les outils de recherche pour arriver à leurs fins, Google dominant largement. Dans un deuxième temps, les principaux résultats au sujet du traitement d’information montrent que la plupart des futurs enseignants évaluent l’information trouvée selon plusieurs critères dont la vérifiabilité de l’information et son utilisation à des fins d’enseignement et d’apprentissage. De plus, on constate que si la majorité d’entre eux sont en mesure de synthétiser l’information trouvée sur le Web, il reste que seule une minorité cite les sources utilisées. Dans un troisième temps, nos résultats dénotent que la formation initiale en compétences informationnelles est nettement insuffisante aux yeux des futurs enseignants, celle-ci étant principalement concentrée en début de baccalauréat sous la forme d’ateliers offerts par la bibliothèque. Parallèlement, les résultats démontrent que la majorité des futurs enseignants mettront davantage l’accent sur l’enseignement de l’évaluation et l’utilisation de l’information que sur sa recherche sur le Web. De fait les élèves seront sensibilisés à évaluer l’information trouvée selon une multitude de critères et à faire attention au plagiat. Dans un dernier temps, les résultats de notre étude sont synthétisés et analysés à la lumière de la littérature et des pistes de recommandations sont proposées dans le but d’améliorer la formation initiale en compétences informationnelles.While Québec’s students from elementary schools to university now mainly use the Web to find information for their studies. many have difficulties getting the information they need. Faced with this new reality, inservice and preservice teachers must give students the proper information literacy training, that is to learn how to search, evaluate and use information to meet their needs. This study aims to analyze if Québec’s preservice teachers have the information literacy competencies to meet their own needs and if they are adequately trained to teach information literacy. To achieve this goal, this research uses a conceptual framework developed around three complementary elements: the information literacy concept, the information seeking process, and information literacy teaching methods. To meet the specific research objectives that resulted from the synthesis of these elements, a mixed methodology combines data collected from a survey, interviews and observations conducted with 353 preservice teachers of a university in Québec. Results on reported and actual practices of the students’ information seeking process on the Web show, firstly, that a majority of them are novice information searchers, as they plan little or not at all their research on the Web, use basic search strategies, and scarcely diversify their research tools, with Google as their preferred tool by far. Secondly, results show that most preservice teachers evaluate the information they find on the Web according to several criteria, including information verifiability and potential use for teaching and learning. But while a majority of preservice teachers are able to synthesize the information found on the Web, only a minority cites correctly their sources. Thirdly, results indicate that preservice teachers perceive their initial training in information literacy as clearly insufficient, for it has been mainly received at the beginning of their program and in the form of workshops by the university’s librarians. Our results also show that while a majority of preservice teachers plan to teach how to evaluate information found on the Web using many criteria and educate them about plagiarism, they will put less emphasis on teaching how to search for information on the Web. We conclude our study by summarizing and analyzing our results in the light of the existing literature and offering recommandations to improve information literacy teacher training