Abstract
This research paper is based on a longitudinal study to find out how long-term embedded whole-task instruction can help students to develop more efficient information problem-solving (IPS) skills that could lead to a better use of internet information for learning and solving digital tasks more effectively. To this end, we designed, implemented and evaluated a three-year instruction programme to promote students’ development of key IPS skills in real-life classroom settings. This research involved sixty-one secondary education students. Forty-two of them received the IPS instruction and their results were analysed longitudinally and subsequently compared to a control group which received the regular courses. The results showed that students who received the IPS instruction improved their performance significantly in tasks in which the use of IPS skills was needed and these students organised and presented the information found on the internet critically and gave personal arguments. The findings also revealed that during the three-year project, the scores of IPS task performance were statistically higher in the instructed students than those obtained in control group students. Our study then provides an insight into how secondary students develop IPS skills throughout long-term instructional support and shows a series of educational implications.
Highlights
The impact of the Internet Age has prompted a paradigm shift in education
It is important to remember that educational research has identified information problem solving ( information problem-solving (IPS)) as a complex process that requires the unfolding of complex higher-order cognitive skills, e.g., [1,2,3]
We have organised the presentation of the results into two subsections: (1) descriptive results obtained by the control and experimental group students in IPS task performance variables in each test and bivariate analyses; (2) longitudinal analyses of long-term instruction effects on task performance
Summary
The impact of the Internet Age has prompted a paradigm shift in education. Nowadays, most of our everyday learning is characterised by drawing knowledge from a wide variety of electronic resources. Learners from different levels are required to search for, collect and understand information from digital external sources and construct a solution to solve a task This shift has never been more noticeable than amidst the current coronavirus pandemic. In this context, it is important to remember that educational research has identified information problem solving ( IPS) as a complex process that requires the unfolding of complex higher-order cognitive skills, e.g., [1,2,3]. Educational institutions and teachers find it difficult to teach the key IPS skills that could help students take full advantage of the opportunities the internet provides for learning and building knowledge autonomously from online digital resources and in finding a suitable place and time in the curriculum [3,5]. Inspired by the Four-Component Instructional Design (4C/ID) model [14] for teaching complex skills, we have designed a long-term, embedded, whole-task IPS instruction programme to foster learning and meaning-making from digital sources and investigated its effects on students’ task performance
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
