From Information Literacy to Social Epistemology

Insights from Psychology

Anthony Anderson, Bill Johnston

• Publisher: Chandos Publishing
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780081005453
• eBook ISBN: 9780081005484
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Business Intelligence
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

From Information Literacy to Social Epistemology: Insights from Psychology focuses on information and the ways in which information literacy relates to critical thinking in education, the workplace, and in our social life. The broad context for our interest is the development in internet technologies often characterised by terms like the 'digital age', leading to questions of digital participation, digital divides, and the role of thinking in the information society. In short, to what extent is the 'digital age' engendering changes in learning directed towards the better use of information, and in addition, encouraging or even requiring improvements in critical thinking? - Provides a new and relevant contribution based on the authors' synthesis of a number of psychological constructs aligned to information literacy - Addresses the issue of information literacy in the wider population by researching adult returnees to higher education and investigating their experiences in relation to prior experience - Applies insights to recent developments on the topic, i.e. the Secker and Coonan IL curriculum, alowing an alternative disciplinary perspective and a new, research-based platform - Develops a model based on the literature reviewed and discusses the relation of the model to the broader concept of social epistemology

Section C

Contributions from the Library and Information Sector

Outline

Chapter 6. Curriculum Development and the New Curriculum for Information Literacy

Chapter 7. The ACRL (2000) Standards and the ACRL (2015) Revised Framework

Chapter 8. UNESCO Contributions to Information Literacy

Chapter 6

Curriculum Development and the New Curriculum for Information Literacy

Abstract

In this chapter, we relate the psychological ideas discussed thus far to the academic practice of course design and re-design. We discuss Secker and Coonan's (2013) New Curriculum for Information Literacy in that light. We find that there is much to commend in Secker and Coonan's work, and argue that detailed consideration of the psychological phenomena that we discussed above would enhance the practical application of the New Curriculum.

Keywords

Curriculum enquiry; Pedagogy; Perspective transformation; Secker and Coonan's New Curriculum for Information Literacy; Transformational learning

6.1. Introduction

This chapter draws together psychological ideas from Chapters 3 to 5 under the theme of curriculum inquiry and development and relates them to a major development in professional thinking and practice – Secker and Coonan’s New Curriculum for Information Literacy. A key issue to arise will be the relationship between the curriculum for a given subject discipline, and a curriculum designed from a basis in information literacy (IL).

Our first task is to integrate the various psychological strands described in preceding chapters, and describe them in terms of a theory of adult learning, which is applicable to higher education and which offers insight into the wider field of learning in everyday life. The work of Jack Mezirow (1978, 2000) on transformational learning is helpful in illuminating the adult learning aspect of the university experience. Our second task is to set out an overview of the nature of curriculum inquiry and development in higher education and to consider the practice of course design and re-design as a practical vehicle to introduce psychologically informed pedagogy to learners in a systematic way, which can be incorporated into an institution’s academic decision-making processes. We use the work of John Biggs on constructive alignment (1978, 2011) as a means of achieving this aim.

Our third task is to explore the contribution Secker and Coonan’s (2013) ‘New Curriculum for Information Literacy’ might make to enhancing the scale and effectiveness of information literacy education in higher education, thereby helping to solve the curricular problems of where information literacy is to be introduced, in what way and to what extent. Since the New Curriculum material is readily available in print form and online, we will not provide a detailed summary. Instead we will concentrate on discussing how it might be used to channel a psychologically informed account of information literacy in practice and crucially how it might be used, by interested academics and librarians, as a tool to bring about change in their courses. In essence we will attempt to view the Secker and Coonan curriculum through the eyes of lecturers and, critically, through the eyes of academic decision-makers who have influence over the shaping of faculty-level pedagogical change.

This chapter is in three parts:

• Transformational learning: Dramatic versus incremental transformation

• Curriculum inquiry and development: Course design for transformation

• New Curriculum for Information Literacy: From one-shot slots to continuous educational development.

The three previous chapters have drawn upon psychological literature in a number of areas – particularly epistemological thinking, critical thinking and metacognition, and pedagogical notions about the nature of learning and study that we hope to (1) weave into a coherent whole and (2) use to infer some recommendations for information literacy instruction. It seems clear to us (and we hope that by now we have also convinced the reader) that the quality of an individual’s information literacy is going to crucially depend upon both his or her searching skills (a point that is by now quite well explored within the literature) and also his or her critical thinking skills. The latter in turn crucially depends upon the epistemological views held by the individual, and their metacognition: the former will influence what type of criticisms will be made (if any) of found items of information, and the latter will influence how thorough, objective and fair the critical thought process is.

At this point it is perhaps worth pondering what would be the outcome of the rigorous application of a pedagogy that successfully encouraged the development of epistemological thinking, metacognition, critical thinking, search skills and knowledge of information as an abstract concept. The outcome, surely, would be an overall qualitative change in a person’s information literacy, not simply in the narrow sense of their then being able to conduct more efficient, rigorous and critical searches to help them find desired information, but in an altogether broader sense of altering their way of thinking about the world of information more generally. In effect, the person would have been transformed. This term has come to be used particularly in the field of adult learning: the notion of transformational learning (eg, Mezirow & Taylor, 2009) denotes a substantial change in the learner’s perception of him/herself and their place in the world. We now turn to a brief explanatory overview of what has grown to be a substantial body of literature.

6.2. Transformational Learning

The theory of transformative learning was first developed by Mezirow (1978) following a study of American women returning to postsecondary education or the workplace after an extended time away, and has undergone a series of revisions over the years (eg, Mezirow, 2000; Mezirow & Taylor, 2009). This genesis in adult education has particular resonance with our work on adult returners to higher education in Chapter 2. Whilst our case study was clearly defined in terms of a specific pre-entry course it was aimed at a general population of entrants rather than the more familiar school-lever population of most undergraduate education. The case study indicates the fluidity between formal higher education, the workplace, the labour market and the general population, and it is also worth noting that this general population constitutes the majority of citizens and employees in the knowledge economy. We will return to discussion of this population in Chapter 9.

The fundamental idea is that learning has a transformative effect on the learner, so that the learner comes to think differently as a result of having undergone a course of formal education. Mezirow’s (1978) adult returners, for example, having completed a college re-entry programme, came to see themselves for the first time as the product of challengeable cultural expectations. The awareness of these hitherto unperceived and therefore unquestioned cultural assumptions concerning women’s roles in society results in the forging of a new identity involving greater autonomy, personal control and responsibility for their lives. This perception is somewhat different to a more limited sense of learning outcome, often held at pre-entry and entry level to a course of study, and expressed in terms of acquiring ‘new skills and knowledge’ whilst obtaining a specific qualification.

Mezirow describes this type of emancipation as an example of perspective transformation. A perspective comprises an individual’s values, beliefs and assumptions, and constitutes a kind of filter through which personal experience is made sense of. When individuals find they can no longer use their current set of values and beliefs to make sense of an experience, transformative learning can occur to allow the development of a new perspective which is more developed in the sense of being more inclusive, discriminating, open and reflective (Mezirow, 2000). The initial study (Mezirow, 1978) examined women’s emancipation from traditional roles and societal expectations of them in a process of consciousness raising, but the idea of transformative learning is quite general and can be applied much more widely to other areas of thinking. For example, degree courses within higher education are often argued (by those who teach them) to be vehicles for encouraging learners to think more systematically and critically in a quite general way. The graduate therefore in a very real sense thinks differently about all sorts of areas compared to the non-graduate. This (assuming it to be the case) would be another example of transformative learning.

Mezirow (1978) in the earliest version of the theory claims that the initial spur to transformative learning is what he calls a ‘disorienting dilemma’, that is, a dawning awareness that the current perspective held is in some way or ways no longer adequate. This leads to a questioning and critical appraisal of the psychocultural assumptions underpinning the current meaning perspective, resulting in the development of a new, transformed perspective. More recent formulations of the theory (Mezirow and Taylor, 2009; see Kitchenham, 2008, for a summary) argue that transformation occurs at both the more global level of meaning perspectives and also at a lower, more specific level of particular meaning structures. This newer version of the theory therefore distinguishes between meaning schemes (which are narrow and specific constellations of concept, belief, judgement and feeling) and meaning perspectives (which are global overarching structures, each comprising a number of meaning schemes), and both can be subject to transformative learning.

Meaning schemes can be expanded, added to, or transformed, whereas meaning perspectives are transformed following critical self-reflection on the assumptions that supported the perspective. One vehicle that is argued to be effective for promoting this critical reflection and transformation is student dialogues with their peers (Thomas, 2009; Tisdell, 2008). This very much ties in with our discussion above about social constructivism, although the latter focused very much on the learning of much lower-level conceptual material. It is entirely possible that peer interaction could help promote the more global change in perspective that Mezirow discusses.

Although the theory of transformative learning has, historically, been subject to various lines of critique (and some of these criticisms are discussed below), its central tenet of transformative change remains both the cornerstone of the theory and a useful concept for characterising change in adult learners as a function of their educational experience.

A critique from Newman (2012) poses radical questions about transformative learning, asking whether it exists at all, and whether the term transformative learning could simply be replaced by the phrase ‘good learning’. He makes a number of critical points about the literature on transformative learning. For example, he asserts that significant change can occur in learners without the radical change implied by the word transformation, even in individuals who complete entire university degrees. He argues that the evidence for transformative learning is usually based on qualitative data and in particular claims from the learners themselves that they have experienced a transformation, and that such affirmations ‘have no guaranteed validity’ (Newman, 2012, p. 40); ultimately we only have the learner’s word for it. He claims that transformative learning differs from other types of learning, if it does at all, by a matter of degree rather than in kind, and that there is therefore nothing particularly distinctive about it. He notes that the experiences that provoke supposed transformative learning can ...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Series Page
• Copyright
• Preface
• Section A. Introduction and Background
• Section B. Psychological Insights
• Section C. Contributions from the Library and Information Sector
• Section D. Social Epistemology
• References
• Index