Lessons from America: teaching politics with the Google generation

The superabundance of information available, particularly through the internet, is posing many challenges to the traditional pedagogy of higher education. Much of this concern is focused on the ubiquity of the search engine Google, with Tara Brabazon amongst the most conspicuous to claim that ‘the popularity of Google is facilitating laziness, poor scholarship and compliant thinking’ (Brabazon, 2007: 15). At the very least, it is clear that Google – as well as the more specialist Google Scholar and the (mostly) open-edited online encyclopedia Wikipedia – have quickly established prominent positions in many students’ strategies to locate information for various assignments. This has led to particular cohorts of students being dubbed, often in a derogatory fashion, the Google generation. While making it clear that many of the stereotypical claims made on behalf of this group are unfounded, this paper will present evidence to support some of the concerns made by Brabazon and others. In addition, it will define the concept that many have recognised as the potential solution to this problem, and will examine one ambitious attempt from the US to confront these problems directly. Moreover, it will be argued that adoption of similar strategies in the UK might address some important criticisms levelled at general university-level politics education in this country

Using assignment data to analyse a blended information literacy intervention: a quantitative approach

This research sought to determine whether a blended information literacy learning and teaching intervention could statistically significantly enhance undergraduates’ information discernment compared to standard face-to-face delivery. A mixture of face-to-face and online activities, including online social media learning, was used. Three interventions were designed to develop the information literacies of first-year undergraduates studying Sport and Exercise at Staffordshire University and focused on one aspect of information literacy: the ability to evaluate source material effectively. An analysis was devised where written evaluations of found information for an assessment were converted into numerical scores and then measured statistically. This helped to evaluate the efficacy of the interventions and provided data for further analysis. An insight into how the information literacy pedagogical intervention and the cognitive processes involved in enabling participants to interact critically with information is provided. The intervention which incorporated social media learning proved to be the most successful learning and teaching approach. The data indicated that undergraduate students’ information literacy can be developed. However, additional long-term data is required to establish whether this intervention would have a lasting impact

Evaluation of outreach services for primary care and mental health; assessing the impact

Objectives: This paper reports an evaluation, carried out for London Health Libraries, of the impact of outreach services to primary care and mental health workers in thirteen different settings. The main aims of the project were to identify the impact being made by the service, and to produce best practice guidelines for outreach services in this kind of ‘difficult’ community setting. Methods: Methods used were: analysis of documents (all 13 services); analysis of any evaluation already performed by or for the service (all 13 services); interviews with outreach librarians (11 services); questionnaire survey of a representative sample of users (8 services, with 66 returned questionnaires, 35% response rate). The services evaluated were very diverse, in terms of setting, structure, functions and activities, and extent and nature of self-evaluation and reporting. The evaluation was therefore largely qualitative, in order to deal with the lack of a consistent ‘template’ for analysis. Emphasis was placed on trying to identify critical incidents , where it could be shown unambiguously that the outreach services made a difference to practice. Study limitations included the difficulty of summarising and comparing very different situations and diverse services, difficulty in identifying critical incidents, and an inability to study ‘non-users’. Findings: Service recipients felt better informed, more up- to-date, more aware of resources, more confident and supported in their work, and saved time. Services contributed to a richer information environment. Direct impacts, demonstrably improved patient care, cost savings etc., were more difficult to establish

Modelling information literacy for classrooms of the future

Although numerous models exist to support the development of information literacy skills, most were designed to support 20th-century technologies and pedagogies. It is widely accepted that information literacy models needs to adapt and develop in response to changes in both technology and pedagogy, but the nature of this development is, as yet, uncertain. iTEC (Innovative Technologies for Engaging Classrooms) is a major EU-funded project attempting to bring about transformation in learning and teaching through the strategic application of learning technology. In this article, findings from the evaluation of iTEC are used to consider how effectively information literacy models which are currently available can support emerging technologically-engaged pedagogies. These findings suggest that an information literacy model for the 21st century needs to be flexible, suited to collaborative work and most importantly acknowledge and support students as creators of knowledge, not simply consumers

Information science and cognitive psychology: a theoretical approach

Information, as a human and social phenomenon, is the object of study of an emergent scientific field named Information Science (IS), which we put forward as unitary and transdisciplinary and open to a rich interdisciplinarity with other fields of knowledge. In face of the new reality, baptized the Information Society', and the emergence of a new paradigm, that we name "post-custodial, scientific and informational", as opposed to the previous one, "historicist, custodial and technicist", it is urgent to consolidate the theoretical and methodological foundations of IS in order to develop research, both pure and applied, and to contribute to a definition of its boundaries as a scientific area, in the scope of Social Sciences. Starting from an operative definition of Information, this paper aims to discuss the cognitive and emotional dimension of the info-communicational phenomenon and, for that, it is crucial to start a profound and hard dialogue with Cognitive Sciences. The label of 'cognitivist' given, in IS literature, to some authors like Bertram Brookes, because of the emphasis he put on the passage from a state of knowledge to a new state through an addition of knowledge coming from an increase of information, sounds quite equivocal, because knowledge and cognition are not synonymous and cognitive and emotional activity is not reducible to formalities. It is necessary to compare concepts and to understand the neuropsychological roots of the production, the organization and the info-communicational behaviour, so the contribution of Neurosciences and Cognitive Sciences, namely Cognitive Psychology, is indispensable