When planning an activity for pupils involving finding and using information, how much thought do teachers typically give to the material they intend the learners to consult and to the context in which it will be used? The key considerations that frequently come to the fore at once are those of the subject of the information and the purpose to which it will be put. Related issues, whilst significant, are often left sidelined, perhaps because for a lot of teachers the research aspect forms only one element of the overall work.
Other matters will be of equal concern to the teacher, notably the way in which the activity will be introduced, especially in terms of the stimuli that will be employed to fire the pupils’ enthusiasm, the manner in which feedback will be delivered over the duration of the project and the marking scheme applied in the final assessment. A complication lies in the fact that with many research assignments for older pupils the information-seeking action may effectively be “hidden” from the teacher. Unless lesson time is specially allocated, much of it will probably happen at home, in a library or in one of the school’s computer areas before school begins, at the end of the working day, during break or over lunch time. Yet, the decisions that the teacher takes in designing and administering the task play a crucial role in establishing the context and ultimate success or failure of how well young people look for information in academic situations. The importance of information and pupils’ interactions with it when tackling research assignments can scarcely be overestimated. Information is, after all, the essential raw material for learning and the research journey is as important as the destination when it comes to confidence building for independent learning.
So what factors that affect information-seeking should be borne in mind by a teacher? Around twelve years ago, Shenton took his first steps into this area by examining a range of issues that young people must consider when they are faced with a problem that demands the use of information. After a detailed analysis of the data he had collected in a four-year PhD project, Shenton aimed to create a framework that presented a truly multi-dimensional picture of the needs for information that were experienced by the four- to eighteen-year-olds who had been his informants. This new piece builds on Shenton’s 2005 work by not only revisiting the original data; it also draws on the findings of a later doctoral study by Beautyman, whose research explored the information-related behaviour of Key Stage Two primary school children.Here the two writers unite to isolate the salient discoveries of their combined projects by presenting their implications for practice in schools.
The Four Dimensions
1) Educational context
The concern here lies in establishing some sort of background to the work involved. The first matter for thought is that of task placement, i.e. where does the activity that requires information to be found fit in the teacher’s overall learning programme? Is the task intended to build on previous work tackled by the pupils, meant as preparation for a larger project to follow or seen as just one in a series? In terms of prior experience, what advance knowledge (which may be subject content or skill-related) will the pupil have to bring to the activity? The nature of the task may broadly be viewed as open, closed or intermediate. There are, though, shades of difference even within the intermediate category, as the pupil may be permitted to choose their subject as long as certain issues are addressed or, in a more restricted situation, be allocated a subject and allowed merely to determine their own aspects for scrutiny. Essentially, the key question is one of how much scope is afforded for the learners to pursue their own areas of interest. The predictability of the required content is a crucial factor when pupils begin to plan their information searches and reflects the complexity of the work. Is the task such that the learners can forecast what information they will need or will some content requirements become apparent only after the early information has been collected?
2) Inherent information characteristics