Critical Information Literacy Research Articles

11.F. Workshop: Can digital health literacy act as a protective factor for students in times of crisis?

Abstract As mental health related issues become more and more prevalent across all ages and social groups around the globe, the identification of protective factors related to well-being is of high importance. In times of the COVID-19-pandemic, this proves to be even more crucial. Young adults and especially students were particularly burdened by social isolation and missing opportunities for personal exchange and supporting relationships during the pandemic. Within this workshop we will discuss the significance of a possible protective factor for the promotion and strengthening of well-being: digital health literacy (DHL). It involves the ability to search for health-related information, to add self-generated content, to evaluate the reliability of health information, to determine the relevance of health information and to protect one's privacy. Findings suggest that it plays a vital part as a protective resource when it comes to maintaining or promoting well-being. This might be particularly the case when the possibility of accessing health-related information is restricted due to reduced social contact. Since important sources for health information are available within the digital space, digital competencies are becoming important to access such information and to conduct a successful and healthy life. The competence of adequately dealing with digital health information, in particular, became more relevant during the COVID-19-pandemic. DHL can be seen as a two-dimensional construct. On the one hand, it refers to the ability to use digital resources to gather health information and, on the other hand, it refers to critical information literacy. Critical information literacy is the ability to collect, understand, evaluate and apply information. Within the proposed workshop, findings of a university survey, conducted within the global COVID-HL network, will be presented. Presentation 1 seeks to address the role of individual factors for the interaction between well-being and DHL. It will further examine the importance of being able to properly assess the relevance of health information. Presentation 2 sheds light on actions, such as adding self-generated health content, when it comes to mental health promotion. It will also take up the relevant individual factors that mediate the relationship between DHL and well-being. Presentation 3 highlights the ability of students to search for health-related information and to use it as a factor to improve their well-being. Presentation 4 provides insight into the importance of DHL for future health professionals in a health sector that is under digital transformation. Lastly, presentation 5 argues for the necessary enhancement of DHL and sense of coherence of students and stresses the need for health promoting and target group specific interventions. In a second step, the audience will be encouraged to ask questions and to engage in a discussion about the suggested conclusions and implications. Key messages • It has been shown internationally that there is a strong relationship between digital health literacy and students’ well-being. • Individual factors are relevant mediators in the relationship between well-being and digital health literacy.

Library-faculty collaboration in the light of a business administration bachelor’s program: ‘The Scientific Wave’

In contemporary digital society, information literacy is increasingly important and viewed as a necessary life skill for all ages, social groups, and professional sectors, hence also affecting higher education. Universities need to develop strategies and approaches to integrate these skills into course syllabi, assignments and assessments based on close library-faculty collaboration. However, librarians and faculty members in higher education traditionally often have separate agendas and limited collaboration. This paper illustrates the background and process of constructing a successful librarian-faculty partnership, as a shared framework entitled the ‘Scientific Wave’ throughout a bachelor’s program in business administration to enhance students’ critical thinking, research skills and information literacy in particular. A case study approach was applied, and data collection was conducted during 2014–2019. The outcomes of a shared framework and library-faculty collaboration are discussed from the perspectives of students, library, and faculty. Findings show that a shared framework based on close collaboration between librarians and faculty, strategic anchoring and visualization in curricula, syllabi, course objectives and assessments developed in line with the mission of the university have an impact on students’ information literacy skills during their education and after graduation. The Scientific Wave is a co-designed continuous framework based on the separate but complementary skills of librarians and faculty to provide students with tools for critical and creative thinking, research skills and lifelong learning in today’s digital society.

ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT IN THE PROJECT WORK OF TERTIARY ESP STUDENTS: CAUSES, RELATIONSHIPS AND SOLUTIONS

University students often lack basic skills related to academic integrity, especially with regard to the ethical use of resources. The paper attempts to identify typical cases of academic misconduct. In an effort to find the situations or circumstances that may trigger unethical behaviour, or a relationship between language proficiency and academic dishonesty, a profound analysis of Business English student projects was made, revealing that there is a relationship between the nature of a task and the occurrence of inadequate use of resources, as academic dishonesty is present irrespective of student’s language proficiency. The authors’ ambition is to propose solutions to tackle unethical academic behaviours, focusing on prevention rather than tracking and penalization. Besides providing proper training in correct citation, paraphrasing and summarization, it is also necessary to reassess the relevance of the project task. This combination should help to achieve not only a unique project work outcome, but also develop skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, collaboration, information literacy, productivity and reliability, and ultimately lead to the development of autonomous lifelong learning.

Strategi Literasi Informasi di Komunitas Belajar Qaryah Thayyibah: Pendekatan konsep literasi, teori empat wacana lacan, dan pedagogi kritis

Qaryah Thayyibah Learning Community (QTLC) is a non-formal school with an anti-mainstream method inspired by Freire and Ivan Illich, rather than adapting national-conventional curricula. In the age of information overload, in line with the emergence of digital natives in QTLC, it is important to discuss (1) how were the critical information literacy practice in this community; (2) teachers’ roles associated with the literacy; (3) and critical pedagogy perspective on the phenomenon. This research was designed using the ethnographic method with a qualitative approach. It was conducted from December 2016 until June 2017 in Kalibening village, Tingkir subdistrict, Salatiga district, Central Java province, Indonesia. The result was that the students of QTLC had been practicing critical information literacy although neither optimal nor ideal yet based on Potter’s criterion and DIKW diagram. The main supporting factors were the culture of discussion and expressing opinions that had been cultivated and ingrained in their school activities, in line with the product or works-based learning strategy. The efforts of the school committee and management to be on the "free school movement" track to some extent—compared to regular schools—freed this community to determine the most appropriate learning method with QTLC’s vision of critical pedagogy, one of which is the practice of critical information literacy. However, the interaction between students and teachers was dominated by hysteric discourse and showed very little of any analytic discourse which is an important factor to realize critical pedagogy. Despite the shortcomings that currently exist, QTLC represents a step toward the realization of critical pedagogical practices in information literacy.

Critical thinking ability and information literacy in identifying fake news on social media users

Information literacy is an ability that a person needs to be able to use information correctly and identify fake news on social media. Critical thinking skills are skills related to information literacy that can help information consumers identify reliable sources while denying fake news (hoax). The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between critical thinking skills and information literacy in identifying fake news on social media users. This study uses a quantitative approach with a sample size of 348 people with early adults characterisctics living in Aceh aged 20-34 years and using social media. Data analysis used the Pearson Correlation technique which showed the correlation coefficient r=0.589 with a significance value p=0.000 (p<0.05). The results of the study concluded that there was a positive relationship between critical thinking skills and information literacy on social media users. The majority of the research samples are in the high category for their critical thinking skills and information literacy.

Community, risk assessment, prevention and control: Black American college students' information seeking on COVID-19.

Despite the disproportionate impact of the novel coronavirus on Black Americans, there is little research that centres Black college students' information behaviours during the pandemic. The objective of this study is to identify information needs, resources and use regarding the novel coronavirus pandemic among Black American college students. This is a quantitative study among 389 college students in the USA. Data were collected using an online crowdsourced survey instrument. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse data through SPSS. The most salient information needs related to Covid-19 symptoms, personal protective equipment, vulnerable populations, and risk assessment; however, students also wanted information on Covid-19's impact on the Black community. There were no statistically significant gender differences in students' information seeking, resources or use with one exception; male students believed the internet alone could provide all relevant information about the coronavirus in comparison to female students. Barriers related to the volume of information, information fluidity and determining the quality of information. Colleges and universities can play a critical role in information dissemination during crisis events. Students need critical information literacy skills that intersect with everyday information needs, particularly health literacy.

Critical Information Literacy Education Strategies for University Students in the Post-Pandemic Era

The advent of the post-pandemic era, with its risks, uncertainties, and global characteristics, puts forward urgent requirements for the innovation of information literacy education in universities. Critical information literacy has become the top priority of information literacy education. It is urgent to explore diversified and effective critical information literacy education strategies for university students. This paper mainly expounds the educational strategies of critical information literacy, such as original material analysis, reflection, and critical reading.

A Librarian’s Experience Teaching Critical Information Literacy

Information literacy focuses on knowing how to use information for work and civic duties, however, critical information literacy goes a step further to recognize that a source’s good reputation does not mean that the source is accurate or unbiased. Critical information literacy questions the motives of the systems that produce the information and includes the knowledge of students so that they influence the lesson as well. Librarians have made critical information literacy a part of their lessons in a variety of ways, and teaching critical information literacy is rooted in critical pedagogy. A review of the literature on critical information literacy and a discussion of the American Association of College and Research Libraries’ framework “Authority Is Constructed and Contextual” in a critical information literacy lesson in an advanced legal research class is considered.

Unsettling information literacy:

In the past seven years, student-led decolonisation movements have taken root in UK universities. Decolonising the university is an intellectual project, asking critical questions about the content of curricula, disciplinary canons and pedagogical approaches. It is simultaneously a material one, challenging the colonial legacies that manifest in institutional spaces, cultures and financial decisions, students’ experience and staff labour conditions (Cotton, 2018, p. 24). Academic libraries have recognised their role in addressing how ‘coloniality survives colonialism’ (Maldonado-Torres, 2007, p. 243), in particular through the diversification of collections and resources. However, libraries have neglected to interrogate their educational potential for decolonisation, specifically in exercising information literacy (IL) teaching and approaches. This qualitative research examines IL through a decolonial lens with an eye to both its colonial attributes and its potential for decolonising the curriculum. Interviews with five academic researchers are used to explore the potential for critical information literacy (CIL) in decolonial work and ask what IL might look like from a decolonial perspective. The findings of the interviews are structured according to Icaza and Vázquez’s framework of three core processes for decolonising the university; they reveal that CIL might usefully facilitate positionality, practice relationality and consider transitionality. In turn, these findings lead to a set of recommendations for unsettling IL and generating the potential for decolonisation. The relationship between CIL and decolonising the curriculum is as yet unexplored and academics’ engagement with and opinions on CIL have rarely been examined. This research therefore offers some novel contributions for IL practitioners and researchers in relation to both teaching/ learning and research. It also contributes some points of departure for a more a powerful and holistic decolonial pedagogy in the university. A more fitting approach than traditional IL, critical information literacy can become a key part of scaffolding a decolonising approach to learners’ navigation of information and processes of knowing.

Integrating information practices into everyday teaching

This paper reports on the information practices and information literacy (IL) skills of South Korean elementary school students from the perspectives of working teachers. Key to this investigation was the notion of information practice, and how this is shaped by the practice architecture found in an educational setting. A sequential mixed design was undertaken to investigate these ideas which consisted of exploratory interviews with 4 elementary school teachers and was followed by a questionnaire which analysed the responses of 314 elementary school teachers. Findings indicate that in this setting, teachers, students and pre-set curricular content serve as the most frequently used information sources for students during their everyday classes. We pay specific attention to the ongoing centrality of the textbook, in its traditional paper format, to the ways in which teachers design learning activities, and suggest that this limits the diversity of informational approaches to which young South Korean learners are exposed. While these learners are engaged, they are limited in terms of informational genre since teachers and textbooks were found to be dominant information proxies. Activities in which students engage in active seeking or scanning are rarer. Contexts with such a configuration may be hindering the development of critical information literacy skills that are vital in dealing with the abundance of information faced by individuals today.

Make Me Think! Exploring Library User Experience through the Lens of (Critical) Information Literacy

While (critical) information literacy (IL) acknowledges the political, economic, and social forces that shape complex information environments, library user experience (UX) typically centers efficiency and “seamlessness,” ignoring the power structures and values that condition learning. In this article, we explore the tensions between IL and UX values and practices, with the aim of starting a conversation about how these two related fields can become more closely aligned.

Pre-Service Teacher’s Intellectual Virtues and Online Information Literacy

Intellectual virtues and online information literacy are critical issues in education. This has a significant impact on the development of pre-service teachers’ learning skills, as they will play an important role in transferring knowledge to students in the future. This article investigates the relationship between intellectual virtues and information literacy among pre-service teachers on an online platform. To collect qualitative data, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions were used. Thirty pre-service teachers from three universities in northeastern Thailand served as key informants. The philosophical analysis was used to analyze the data, along with phenomenological analysis. The results looked into the intellectual virtues that pre-service teachers needed to improve their learning skills. Curiosity played a role in encouraging pre-service teachers to improve their critical thinking skills when dealing with online information. Furthermore, intellectual thoroughness and intellectual attentiveness were helpful for pre-service teachers to improve information literacy skills. Improving pre-service teachers’ information literacy through various instructional approaches was beneficial in allowing them to make rational choices when accessing online information. The article suggests higher education institutes providing more instructional practices to pre-service teachers to boost their critical thinking skills and information literacy on an online platform.

Critical Information Literacy in the Post-Truth Era: A Strategy for Facing Information Flow in Indonesia

Information literacy in this post-truth era is an important thing that must be understood by the Indonesian society in dealing with the truth and lies of the information obtained. This paper examines through a literature approach about the conception of information literacy in the post-truth era and what strategies must be understood by the information community in Indonesia in dealing with the spread of fake news from various media. This study concludes that critical thinking is an important part of information literacy that must be understood by Indonesian people to face the dynamics of information in the post-truth era. Critical information literacy can help our ability to search, find and use quality information. Thus, the strategy that must be carried out in dealing with the dissemination of information in the post-truth era is to identify the source, check the author, read the entire contents, check the novelty of the writing, check the balance of the information, the authenticity of the information, and always ask the experts when checking the web source.

Toxicological Information Literacy Protects Human Health

ABSTRACT Chemicals are used extensively in modern societies. Evidence-based, updated safety information is necessary for using chemicals correctly and for protecting the health of humans and environment. This paper describes safety information life cycle of chemicals and highlights why it is important that individuals need to acquire critical toxicological information literacy skills to identify reliable information. Six competence standards of toxicological information literacy are defined according to the principles of the Association of College and Research Libraries. We also discuss the reliability of open access information sources.

Informed, active, empowered: research into workers’ information literacy in the context of rights at work

The paper reports the findings of research into information literacy in the context of workers’ rights in Croatia. It analyses workers’ information behaviour and the ways in which they obtain and use information to seek the protection of their rights. The paper aims to map out a new research framework for information literacy situated at the junction of workplace and critical information literacy. Quantitative data were collected by an online questionnaire with 50 primarily close-ended questions on a nationally representative sample of N=500 employed workers. Quantitative analysis was carried out on the data employing SPSS and Excel. Higher levels of being informed and information competences, and active information behaviour, lead to less frequent violations of workers’ rights and to a greater readiness to seek the protection of, and fight for, those rights. The findings confirm the importance of information literacy in the prevention of violations of rights and in mounting effective opposition when these occur, and in the empowerment of workers to seek their protection and improvement. The results allow further delineation of the information literacy practices of workers. The paper brings the first attempt to look into the prospect of the critical workplace information literacy construct.

The Critical Information Literacy Leadership Institute as Alternative to the One-Shot: Q & A with a Faculty Partner

In spring 2021, the Pfau Library and Teaching Resource Center (TRC) at California State University, San Bernardino developed a virtual Critical Information Literacy Leadership Institute, which was meant to introduce the foundations and pedagogical applications of critical information literacy (CIL) so departmental faculty could teach it and advocate for its integration across campus. The institute was a new approach to faculty development at the Pfau Library, as it engaged a multidisciplinary team and incorporated leadership and advocacy training. Though some library-led workshops and activities had been co-sponsored by outside units, they had never been developed and led by faculty or campus leaders other than librarians. Such an approach asks that librarians give up, to a certain extent, “control” over CIL on their campuses. While this might be uncomfortable for those who are understandably concerned about sharing their already miniscule institutional space and power with others, participants can benefit from a collaborative approach that leverages the strengths and experiences of those who are invested in CIL but “live” outside the library. And because Gina Schlesselman-Tarango, a librarian, was an institute co-lead, participants still understood her—and by extension, her colleagues in the library—to be knowledgeable resources on all things CIL.

Deceived, Confused, or Peer Reviewed? Critical Information Literacy in a First-Year Neuroscience Course.

Information literacy skills are necessary to parse today's complex information landscape full of general audience, scholarly, and deceptive sources. For a student new to college and unfamiliar with publishing norms in the discipline, it can be difficult to identify and select from among the range of sources that electronic searches return - especially on Google or Google Scholar, which most students use regularly at the pre-college level. Centering information literacy as a course objective invites students into the scholarly conversation at a deeper level than typical one-off database searching sessions. Further, framing this objective through the lens of critical information literacy engages students in considering how structures of power and privilege direct the production, dissemination, and consumption of scientific research products, including deceptive sources. We, an information literacy librarian and a neuroscience faculty member at a small liberal arts college, have collaborated in developing critical information literacy curricula embedded within an introductory neuroscience course. Here we will briefly describe our motivation, process, and outcomes, and lessons learned from this effort.

Towards A Critical Music Information Literacy Praxis

:Critical music information literacy enables an individual to recognize and navigate the power structures that exist in our systems of music information construction, dissemination, preservation, and access. It relies on an instructor’s critical disposition toward information, which is passed on to the student who can then recognize the relationship between power and scholarship. Together they can seek to resist and tear down inequitable systems and practices. If we understand collections to be a locus of musical study and discourse, it is necessary for library workers, as well as those using music collections like researchers and performers, to engage in critical praxis and critical music information literacy if we hope to create an anti-racist, equitable society that “bend[s] toward justice.” Using this definition of critical music information literacy, we explore theories that inform its praxis within music library workership, briefly summarize challenges due to the materiality of music information, and offer some practical applications for reflection, adoption, and action.

Wikipedia as Open Educational Practice: Experiential Learning, Critical Information Literacy, and Social Justice

Building on previous research related to information literacy and learning with Wikipedia, this article interprets Wikipedia editing practices as fulfilling the Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education to better understand Wikipedia pedagogy as an Open Educational Practice (OEP) that promotes critical information literacy and social justice. Drawing primarily on data from a large-scale study conducted with students and instructors engaged in Wikipedia-based assignments in the fall of 2016, the authors explore how Wikipedia-based pedagogies directly map on to knowledge practices and dispositions related to authority, information value and process, research, and scholarship as conversation, as presented in the ACRL’s Framework. Description and analysis of these “frames,” and the relevant policies and pedagogical practices engaged in Wikipedia-based assignments, ultimately underscore how viewing Wikipedia as enabling OEPs promotes social justice through improving knowledge equity, understanding and combating systemic biases, and supporting first-generation students’ success.

Fostering Critical Thinking in First-Year Students through Information Literacy Instruction

As students encounter high volumes of misinformation in online environments, cultivating critical thinking is an important goal of information literacy instruction, especially for first-year college students, who are just beginning to develop cognitive habits in their early years of postsecondary schooling. However, this study demonstrates that the relationship between critical thinking and information literacy is not obvious, and relatively little has been recently studied regarding how academic librarians incorporate critical thinking into their library instruction. Through a series of in-depth interviews, the researchers sought to understand how academic librarians who primarily instruct first-year college students conceive of, teach, and assess critical thinking skills in relation to information literacy.