Critical Information Literacy Research Articles

Unveiling the Role of Political Education for Political Participation in China

It is a well-known fact that political education plays a pivotal role in shaping informed, engaged, and responsible citizens in a country. The empirical literature lacks the exploration of the impact of political education on political participation in addition to political efficacy and social media usage. This study investigates the interconnected relationship between political education, social media usage, political efficacy, and political participation in China. Drawing upon a sample of 843 participants across various regions, this research explores the extent to which these factors influence political participation within the Chinese context by applying the structural equation modelling for empirical results and establishing a positive association between political education and political participation. Furthermore, the mediating role of social media and political efficacy is uncovered in relationship of political education and political participation in China. It is suggested to emphasize and invest in comprehensive political education programs through colleges, universities and social media that promote critical thinking, information literacy, and political responsibility for the well-being of the Chinese society.

Critical Pedagogies and Critical Information Literacy in STEM librarianship: A Literature Review

In contrast to the traditional library instruction aim of finding and evaluating information, critical library pedagogies aim to teach students to analyze and challenge the power structures that determine what kind of information is deemed valuable. STEM librarians have been slower to take up these approaches than our colleagues with other disciplinary focuses, yet I argue that critical teaching is one of the most important ways that we can support social justice goals in our work. In this paper, I review the existing literature on critical pedagogies in STEM librarianship and suggest ways for us to develop our practice in this area.

Integrating 21st Century Skills in Curriculum and Material Development Course

The Curriculum and Material Development (CMD) course content is contextualized in accordance with technological advancements in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the community's need for educators who possess 21st-century skills. This revision involves integrating 21st-century skill values into curriculum development, syllabi, teaching materials, media, methods, and learning evaluation. Therefore, this study focuses on integrating 21st-century skills and 21st-century digital skills, including critical thinking, creative thinking, collaboration, communication, information literacy, media literacy, technology literacy, flexibility, initiative, social skills, productivity, and leadership, into the CMD course. This study employs the Research and Development method, which involves identifying the problem, describing existing issues, creating a design, validating the design with experts, revising the design of the English learning model, conducting trials, and making revisions. The study's outcomes include three areas of integrating 21st-century skills into the CMD course. The first area involves integrating 21st-century skills into the preliminary activity of designing lesson plans. Secondly, in the process, 21st-century skills should be integrated into the design of learning materials and tasks. Finally, after the activity, 21st-century skills should be integrated into the evaluation and reflection process. The CMD course aims to integrate 21st-century skills throughout the language curriculum. It covers Communicative Syllabus Design, Text-Based Syllabus Design, Product-Oriented Syllabus Design, Process-Oriented Syllabus Design, Content-Based Curriculum, Integrated Curriculum, EFL Curriculum, and EFL Syllabuses and Lesson Plans for Indonesian Students.

About Social Communications of Nazarbayev University Library

Objective. The purpose of the article is a systematic analysis of social communications of Nazarbayev University Library based on an analysis of the structure of the social communication as a system and the factors determining its formation and development. Methods. For a comprehensive analysis of such a complex phenomenon of social life as social communication, its interpretations in the Western and post-Soviet traditions, as well as such a concept in sociology as social space (social field), which defines the mission of the library as an institution of society are considered. Results. It is noted that the purpose and goals of social communication of an academic library are determined by the mission of the library as an institution of society in specific social time and space, as well as the mission of the university with which the library is affiliated. Conclusions. Typically, an academic library has three main areas of social communication: 1) the university community; 2) the professional library community at the national, regional, and international levels; 3) the public community with which the library interacts to popularize reading, promote universal values and ethical standards, develop critical thinking, media and information literacy (culture).

Investigating pedagogical, technological and school factors underpinning effective ‘critical thinking curricula’ in K-6 education

ObjectiveThis study investigated factors underpinning a successful technology-supported classroom curriculum, specifically designed to promote K-6 students’ critical thinking. MethodsVideo and audio data illustrating 41 students’ application of critical thinking were collected using a unique display recording app installed on iPads. These were timeline analysed using a literature-generated framework comprising Indicators of critical thinking. Interview data were thematically analysed to build knowledge of teacher pedagogical and school factors supporting the curriculum. ResultsData indicated students mostly applied critical thinking for defining and clarifying concepts, presenting reasoned arguments and conclusions, questioning and challenging others’ perspectives, seeking evidence for claims made, and identifying and critiquing assumptions. Results highlight the important contribution of teacher theoretical knowledge, school-wide commitment to a ‘critical thinking’ curriculum, and common understanding of the broader purpose schooling, as foundational to the curriculum's success. ConclusionTeaching for critical thinking was facilitated by close alignment between pedagogical, technological, and school environment factors. It was underpinned by a school-wide learning virtues and values framework emphasising students’ future competencies developed from extensive reading of research and learning theory, and was deliberately planned for. It reflected in theory-informed task design, technology selection, and pedagogy. PracticeCritical thinking has been identified in school curricula as an important capability. However, while imperatives and general principles promoting critical thinking in schools are detailed in official documents, few examples exist illustrating how critical thinking can be fostered in K-6 education. ImplicationsExplicit teaching for critical thinking should be considered a priority by teachers at all school levels. Given rapid technological advances such as AI, and implications these hold for students’ critical information literacy, this study provides timely guidance on how explicit teaching for critical thinking might be approached in K-6 education.

Centering justice/decentering whiteness: the case for abolition in information literacy pedagogical praxis

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to make visible the field's propensity to center whiteness even in engaging inclusive practices in information literacy classrooms. This paper offers abolitionist pedagogy as a means to understand and address these concerns.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses interdisciplinary research methods in the fields of education, library science, feminist studies, Black studies and abolition studies to examine and provide an analysis of current information literacy practices by using abolitionist pedagogy to articulate how it is possible to expand information literacy instruction practices.FindingsCurrent information literacy practices and methods that seek to create inclusive learning environments for racialized and minoritized learners rely on a set of institutionalized practices such as critical information literacy and culturally sustaining pedagogies. An examination of these practices through an abolitionist pedagogical lens reveals how the field has engaged in reductive and uncritical engagement with these methods despite employing them to create inclusive spaces. Using abolitionist pedagogy as a lens, this critical essay examines the field's foundations in whiteness and illustrates pathways for transformative educational justice.Originality/valueThere has been much work on inclusive teaching practices that discusses challenging information literacy structures' reliance on dominant culture.? To date, there has been little to no scholarship on how information literacy practices could engage in abolitionist pedagogical praxis.

Addressing the challenges in scholarly communication

After twenty years of the open access movement, there has been growth in the uptake of open access, and some progress has been made in achieving its original goals; however, results have been far from satisfactory, with more than half of the research literature still closed (COKI, 2022; Curry, 2018). Moreover, new concerns have arisen, such as questionable quality and the reliability of peer review, in particular predatory publishing. There are also threats to equity, including stratifications of publishing as a consequence of the exclusionary character of the author-pays model of open access, and new risks of bias and exclusion in the means of transparent evaluation (Ross-Hellauer et al., 2022). It is argued that these challenges are the result of the uncritical narratives of openness and their narrow focus on access alone which fail to address inequitable power dynamics, systemic problems and the structural barriers in scholarly publishing and knowledge production (Perry, 2020; ibid.).These cha(lle)nges in the system of scholarly communication, coupled with recent advances in technology and the tectonic transformations in the information environment, require new (pedagogical) approaches and foci that would enable researchers and students to understand and navigate such a complex environment; for this, a holistic and integrative approach to scholarly communication and information literacy is needed (ACRL, 2013; Špiranec, 2015).Scholarly communication, including open access, is impossible without information literacy (Hebrang Grgić, 2016). As they are both concerned with (access to) information, open access and in particular critical information literacy largely share the same goals, ethical dimensions and values of (social and epistemic) justice, equity and democratisation. Indeed, they have been considered instrumental to achieving these, and even proclaimed a panacea and deus ex machina for the current scientific, social and political challenges and crises (Hebrang Grgić, 2016; Kapitzke, 2003). However, literature on the intersections and interplay between open access and information literacy has been limited.This paper seeks to intertwine these two concepts more strongly, for mutual exchange and benefit, by analysing their convergent aspects as well as the role information literacy has in the context of the complexities of the scholarly communication system and in achieving open access. The paper builds on the few empirical studies of the intersections between the two concepts (e.g. Hebrang Grgić (2016) which confirms the importance of ‘open access literacy’), but goes beyond their functional approaches, advocating a more holistic and critical approach to open access to help reinvent it and make a more substantial progress in open access. It argues that the transformations in the information environment and the scholarly communication system require not only basic skills and competences at the core of information literacy but also specific skills of, for instance, managing scientific data and publishing in open access sources. More importantly, what is also required is critical consciousness of all the aspects of the research process including the context, power relationships, and the privileged positions in knowledge production, publishing and dissemination, and an ability to evaluate the quality and reliability of information.The paper proposes critical open access literacy as a pedagogical methodology and strategy to confront the challenges and enable a critical understanding of the contemporary information environment and scholarly communication. In line with the tenets of critical information literacy, critical open access literacy is directed at an analysis and critique of the economic, social, political, legal and technological conditions, aspects and implications of open access and the overall scholarly communication system, as well as the power dynamics, tensions and flaws within them. This will empower students and researchers to navigate this environment successfully and potentially become champions of its transformation to make it more meaningful, reliable, equitable and democratic.

Developing Critical Information Literacy Pedagogies in the Face of Scholarly Misconduct

ABSTRACTDrawing on the need to shift from competency‐based information literacy instruction to critical information literacy instruction, this study examines scholarly communication and scholarly misconduct in the health sciences based on literary evidence. We report on a qualitative systematic review of forms of scholarly misconduct in the health sciences and participants' attitudes towards these phenomena, with the goal of developing new, critical, approaches to information literacy instruction. The data synthesis process indicates there are four major areas of misconduct in health science research: in conducting research, publishing, following research protocols and determining authority. This categorization informs a framework for critical information literacy dispositions and pedagogies for researchers across health disciplines and geographies.

Critical information literacy as a form of information activism

Information literacy emerged in the 1970s to address information needs in an active and critical way. However, the increasing availability of information and the evolution of technology led information literacy to focus more on instrumental aspects and less on its cognitive, axiological, and critical dimensions. As a response, a new wave emerged to explicitly focus on the most critical and emancipatory aspects: Critical Information Literacy (CIL). This concept has been developed in a dynamic and spontaneous way through the various practices and publications on the topic and as a reflection of the social advances in recent decades. In this paper, CIL is presented as a means of action for informational activism to promote changes in society aligned with the values of human rights and social justice. We present a review of the main authors that have worked with CIL, including the active scene in Brazil and its Freirean influence, aiming at systematizing the concept and its main characteristics in a global landscape dominated by misinformation and absence of informational and digital competences. The concept of informational activism is presented and discussed as one of the main lines of action for Library and Information Science in today's polarized society.

Market Demand of Private University Graduates: An Empirical Analysis Using Skills Needed for Development Partner

In the onset of 1980, Government, educators, and employers prepared a series of reports identifying key skills and implementation strategies to guide students, workers towards meeting the demands of the changing world. Finally, the abridged list of skills refers to the learning skills, literacy skills, and life skills which are felt important for the success of students in the current situations. The students required these skills when shift to college, university, workplace and in full-aged life. The components of those skills were: creative thinking, collaboration, communication, creativity, technical literacy, media literacy, computer literacy, flexibility, initiatives, social-skills, productivity, and leadership. To provide knowledge and training on those skills individual academic institutions required standards capacity level for producing right graduates. In our society a significant level of gaps is persistently lying between the demand and supply of human resources. This may result large percentage of structural unemployment. As a result, it is felt to design the study for finding out the immediately needed skills, and skills to be made available in the moderate time frame, and skills to be made available in the remote time frame. These have been worked out by interviewing 300 passed out graduates from 10 selected universities functioning in our society. The study validates the data collected from the students holding discussions with employer’s representatives and organizing FGD. A binary logistic-regression model along with PCA techniques were deployed for grouping the skills into immediate, moderate time remote time frame. The estimated results of the parameters of the model are found very significant which means that the model fitted to the data significantly. On the basis of the estimated model, the immediately, needed skills are identified as communication, creativity, initiative and media literacy. The second group of skills that should be made available in the moderate time frame is included as: critical thinking, information literacy, leadership and productivity. Lastly, the study suggested that the skills on technology literacy, collaboration, flexibility and social-skills should be made available for building a complete man in the long time frame because these concepts, knowledge, and skills depend on learning and practices with sincerity.

The challenges, supports, and strategies of self-directed learning among college students

In addition to be proficient at their core subjects, college students need to master the 21st-century skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, information literacy, and many other skills. Studies on self-directed learning (SDL) have indicated that SDL is a strong predictor for 21st-century skill mastery. This study aimed at exploring the challenges, supports, and strategies of SDL among college students. This qualitative study used interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs) to obtain data on SDL. The respondents in this study were college students in a private university. The interview and the focus group discussions were then transcribed, analyzed, and coded to find emerging themes. The results of this study indicate several important points. First, social media can empower students in their learning, but can also distract them from their learning. College students needed support from parents, peer groups, and even alumni to seek knowledge independently. Making priorities and maintaining good relationship with classmates, friends, seniors, and alumni are some of the strategies that college students used.

Discourse analysis of news frames in Philippine banner stories on COVID-19: implications for media and information literacy during crises

To understand newspapers’ Covid-19 portrayal in the Philippines and contribute to COVID-19 media framing literature, this study identified news frames in 97 banner stories of three Philippine broadsheets and determined how major frames depicted COVID-19 during its initial spread in the country (January 30 - March 25, 2020). Utilizing deductive and inductive approaches to generate news frames for coding, results yielded 12 frames in the three newspapers, with Action, New Evidence, Reassurance, Conflict, Economic Consequence, and Social Consequence as major frames. Generally, the newspapers’ pandemic depiction was similar in foregrounding government response and new COVID-19 information instead of news that invites fear and panic. Variations were found in the newspapers’ individual focus on the pandemic, conflicts about it, and its economic effects – nuances which reflected the newspapers’ reputation. Results identify the need for developing people’s critical media and information literacy skills. Studying COVID-19 news framing in developing these skills is recommended.

The Hashtag Syllabus as Class Assignment: From Information Literacy to Cultural Critique

In recent years, scholar-activists have used hashtag syllabus movements to organize and share curricular resources related to pressing social and cultural issues in a widely accessible format. These collaboratively designed readings lists have provided many classroom-based educators with diverse and far-reaching texts with which to engage students on issues of social injustice and structural inequality. In this paper, we argue that having students develop hashtag syllabi in the context of interdisciplinary social science courses not only provides access to a breadth and depth of content knowledge and a range of perspectives on these topics but creates the conditions in which students can develop and strengthen critical information literacy skills. Using example assignments from introductory and upper-level undergraduate courses, we demonstrate the potential of these assignments to promote deep learning, challenge hegemonic knowledge production, address the personal and affective components of research, and connect our students’ work in the classroom to problems that exist outside of it.

From Provoking Emotions to fake Images: The Recurring Signs of fake news and Phishing Scams Spreading on Social Media in Hungary, Romania and Slovakia

The phenomenon of fake news and media manipulation has always existed in human history, long before the invention of digital technology. However, never before in the history of mankind has it been possible to spread fake news so quickly, in such large quantities and to such large masses, as now, in the age of the internet and social media. In this paper we identified 31 recurring signs of fake news and phishing scams spreading on social media in Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, based on the content analysis of 866 screenshots of social media posts, internet articles, phishing emails and SMS messages from these 3 countries. The most common group of signs are signs of provoking emotions. The second largest group of indicators include the characteristics of the media publishing the news. The third major category is the visual appearance and wording of the news. The fourth group of recurring signs refers to the original source of the news. The fifth group of indicators is the lack of reliable and/or official media coverage of the story. The elements of the sixth group of signs are the photoshopped and re-framed 'proof' images and videos that appear in the news. The seventh, and final group, of indicators refers to the prior beliefs and biases of the target audience. Provoking emotions, and thereby turning off the recipient's critical thinking, is the most common sign of fake news, scams and other hoaxes. Consequently, there is a great need for a high level of critical thinking and information literacy regarding social media contents on the part of the recipient. Our research was based on a fake news database collected in the framework of an international Erasmus+ project called "Media Detective". The aim of the project is to develop media literacy training modules for teachers and youth workers that could be used in school settings.

Interrogating representations of transgressive women: Using critical information literacy and comic books in the Shakespeare classroom

How can instructors and librarians collaborate to provide the interpretive scaffolds for students to critically engage with visual primary materials? The authors, an English faculty member and a faculty instruction librarian at the University of New Hampshire at Manchester (UNH Manchester), used graphic fiction as the textual basis of information literacy (IL) instruction, encouraging students to interpret primary and secondary sources using visual literacy heuristics and critical inquiry skills. Their student-centered, inquiry-based IL session for a Capstone Shakespearean Adaptations course focused on critical thinking and research question design. Using woodcuts from primary historical texts and images from contemporary graphic fiction adaptations of Macbeth, the instructors decentralized the classroom, empowering students to ask probing questions about illustrations of witches in early modern English source materials. Students used their questions to explore interpretations of visual depictions of powerful women in historical primary texts and contemporary graphic adaptations of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Guided by the instructors, students decoded images using the metadiscourse of graphic fiction; generated questions to inform their own inquiry into the topic; applied their IL skills to new texts; and interrogated the biases of received narratives about women who transgress societal norms and expectations, both in the early modern period and in the contemporary world.

Critical workplace information literacy

In this paper, the author explores the prospect of, and the rationale for, the critical workplace information literacy (CWIL) construct, by situating it at the junction of critical information literacy (CIL) and workplace information literacy (WIL), the two hitherto discrete frameworks and subdomains of information literacy (IL). This preliminary attempt at the conceptualisation of a new construct was guided by the question of what role CIL can play in empowering workers to attain decent work. The author frames the conceptualisation around the ‘decent work’ (DW) concept, as a normative goal of the critical workplace information literacy construct, and discusses the rationale for it in the framework of the discussion on the decent work deficits in the contemporary work and information environment. Freire’s critical hermeneutics and dialectics of voice and empowerment are drawn upon. The paper argues positively for the role of CIL in attaining decent work and for the need for a new construct that would help fill the knowledge and discursive gap in IL and its subdomains and overcome the current silos in the IL community. The author concludes that developing a concept requires a broad deliberative process informed by both theoretical and empirical research, and gives suggestions for future research.

Critical information literacy at the crossroads

In this article, the authors explore whether academic libraries are truly capable of implementing a critical information literacy (CIL) praxis and if there are inherent threats to critical librarianship when incorporating CIL into the curriculum. The survey instrument in this study gathered data from 92 academic library instructors based within the United States. The study identified that 41% of question respondents had received negative comments or criticisms about including CIL in their library curriculum through various formats: online modules, one-shot instruction, course-embedded units, and credit-bearing courses. In addition, 29% of question respondents felt that pushback from academic teaching staff, other librarians/administration, and students threatened the integrity of CIL. This research helps to illustrate the fragility of CIL and how librarians have faced pushback when critical content is incorporated into the information literacy (IL) curriculum.

Critical information literacy of social workers

The aim of this study is to contribute to a pragmatic understanding of critical information literacy (CIL) by positioning it as a context-specific interpersonal practice. Using phenomenography to explore how information work is experienced by social workers in social and health care settings, this paper provides an example of critical information practice that can be used to operationalise and activate CIL as a theory and inform approaches to critical pedagogy. CIL as a concept is generally theorised, practiced, and taught in academic contexts, and relatively few examples of how theory can be defined and put into practice outside a classroom setting are available. This study builds on our understanding of CIL by exploring professional information practice and suggests a model for teaching to engage learners inconnecting information to action in social systems.

‘They burn so bright whilst you can only wonder why’

In this article we connect critical librarianship and its practices of information literacy (IL) with working-class experiences of higher education (HE). Although the research literature and professional body of knowledge of critical information literacy (CIL), is one of the most theoretically-developed areas of wider critical librarianship (Critlib) movement, working-class knowledge and experiences remain underrepresented. One reason for this is that the values, behaviour and assumptions of library and HE workers are shaped by a HE system which inculcates middle-class values and cultural capitals within students, and stigmatises working-class students as lacking or in deficit. Hegemonic, or non-critical, IL proselytises middle-class values and assumptions about academic practices and skills development including the notion of an ideal student with behaviour and markers of identity which reflect those most privileged by wider society. In contrast CIL, framed as the socially-just practice of IL is theoretically well-placed to support working-class library workers in destabilising this alongside middle-class accomplices. Employing Yosso’s (2005) concept of community and cultural wealth (CCW), we analyse how library workers can recognise working-class cultural wealth within the context of CIL and wider working practices. As such narrative accounts are lacking in the literature, we utilise collaborative autoethnography (CAE) (Chang et al., 2013) to consider and interpret our own experiences of libraries when we were university students ourselves, and more recently as HE workers of working-class heritage.

Dialectical roots and routes from Hegel to Bloch

The "critical" element present in many critical information literacy (CIL) studies shows a commitment to the practical challenge of the power structures that shape current information regimes. In this article, we argue that it is necessary to analyse how such power structures, organised under a capitalist social order with neoliberal contours, benefit from disinformation, scientific denialism and class, race and gender oppression. In addition to discussing how philosophical notions of language and postmodern relativism appear in the present time, our main theoretical objective is to highlight some thoughts of Hegel, Marx and Bloch on the notions of dialectics, praxis and concrete utopia, aiming to contribute to strengthen the critical element that names and distinguishes CIL as a field of inquiry in library and information studies.