Assessing children’s information and knowledge organisation competency in elementary schools of Hong Kong

Abstract

This article evaluates the information and knowledge organisation competency of third- to fifth-grade primary school students in Hong Kong directly or indirectly. The majority of the students are aged 8–11 years. The types of information and knowledge organisation schemes to be identified or organised include shallow taxonomies (e.g. a list of entities, a list of features of an entity, a list of events) and simple descriptive ontologies (e.g. a sequence of events, reasons of events, relation between entities or events). A total of 86 students participated in the study. Each student was asked to read an English book and a Chinese book, and to answer assessment questions about the content within the books. The questions ask children to identify members of a flat taxonomy and organise simple descriptive ontologies. The children’s overall information and knowledge organisation competency is found to be weak, but children’s information and knowledge organisation capabilities are not equally weak. The children identify features of an entity significantly better than a list of events, and identify reasons significantly better than flat taxonomies and relations. The findings have theoretical and practical implications for book writers, book cover designers, teachers, librarians and designers of information systems for children.