Four information literacy models

One way to approach information literacy is by investigating different models. The models presented here do not necessarily go by the title information literacy; they were chosen because they are the most prominent representatives of their respective perspectives to information literacy: conception-based, process-based, skills-based, and one model from the educational field. The purpose is to highlight the different starting points to studying information literacy. The model from education field was included to include perspective to models used in pedagogy. By analysing these models together, their differences can be seen more clearly.

Information literacy models often have different starting points and they may reach for different target groups (e.g., according to education level), but what is often similar is the process nature of the models.. The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) model describes the skills the information seeker should possess or acquire in order to succeed in his/her mission.

3.1.1. Kuhlthau’s information-seeking process

Carol Kuhlthau’s well-known model information-seeking process (ISP) (Kuhlthau, 2004) has been widely used and can be characterized as a process approach that describes how information seeking should be properly done while securing learning. She has also defined it as a sequential model: “The ISP is experienced as a sequence of one thing after another in a period of time” (Kuhlthau, 2008, p. 67).

29 The phases of Kuhlthau’s ISP model are:

1. Initiation 2. Selection 3. Exploration 4. Formulation 5. Collection 6. Presentation

Emphasis in Kuhlthau’s model is placed on the first four phases of the information- seeking process, which are the planning phases. The ISP model is based on a research of 25 upper secondary school pupils acting on an enquiry-based learning unit. The results are the outcome of several methods employed during the initial and four verification studies to understand the experiences pupils have during information- seeking processes.

Results showed that particular emotions emerge in certain phases which, in turn, affect studying and learning. Furthermore, the results depict the activities, cognitive as well as psychological, and the emotional experiences that occur during the information-seeking process. In verification studies with the research participants of the initial study the feelings of inadequacy, uncertainty, and discomfort in the beginning had mitigated and replaced by tolerance towards uncertainty, and awareness of seeking meaning. (Kuhlthau, 2004, p. 53)

The ISP model has been further developed as a working model for schools, Guided Inquiry Design (GID™) (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, & Caspari, 2007); whereas ISP depicts what happens during the process, GID guides the process from the beginning in order to avoid problems encountered in the ISP model, such as difficulty to find relevant information or feelings of inadequacy in information seeking.

The Guided Inquiry Design supports the pupil along the information seeking process, with emphasis on the beginning of it to ensure that the pupils are prepared to enter the path of information seeking and management. With the help of inquiry groups, inquiry journals and inquiry logs, pupils document their learning during the process and, with the help of the inquiry team (teachers, librarian and a specialist), learn to manage difficult phases better and improve their skills. The GID has its roots in Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (Kuhlthau & Maniotes, 2010); to help pupils forward with series of interventions when they feel unable to proceed on their own. The purpose of interventions is to help the pupils to raise their level of achievement; to create a zone where pupils can perform better than what they could have performed on their own (Cheyne & Tarulli, 2005).

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3.1.2. ACRL’s information literacy competency standards

The ACRL’s information literacy perspective is contained in its “Information Literacy Competency Standards” which, in turn, are based on standards for libraries in higher education. The model is considered as a normative model. In 1987 the presidential Committee of Association of College and Research Libraries commemorated a group of experts to see what actions should be taken to tackle the challenges of the information age. (Association of College and Research Libraries, 1989)

The ACRL model is a generic-skills-based normative model that describes the skills one should possess in order to perform well in studies and in any task requiring information literacy skills. ACRL defined information literate people as follows:

Ultimately, information literate people are those who have learned how to learn. They know how to learn because they know how knowledge is organized, and how to use information in such a way that others can learn from them. They are people prepared for lifelong learning, because they can always find the information needed for any task or decision at hand. (Association of College and Research Libraries, 1989)

This definition is also provided by ACRL in the form of a list (American Library Association, 2000):

1. Able to determine the extent of information needed.

2. Able to access the needed information effectively and efficiently. 3. Able to evaluate information and its sources critically.

4. Able to incorporate selected information into one’s knowledge base. 5. Able to use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose.

6. Able to understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally.

In 2015 the standard was modernised to encompass the ever proceeding information world, technological ecosystem and education. The Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education consists of six frames: authority is constructed and contextual, information creation as a process, information has value, research as enquiry, scholarship as conversation, and searching as strategic exploration (Association of College & Research Libraries, 2015). The new framework has stepped away from a process like description and moved towards a cluster of carefully considered concepts to support information literacy learning.

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In Finland, ACRL standards—which were translated by Finnish university libraries at the turn of the millennium (Helsingin yliopiston opiskelijakirjasto, 2001)—have become the basic duties of university and college libraries on a broad scale.

3.1.3. Christine Bruce’s seven faces of information literacy

Christine Bruce’s model (Bruce, 1997) differs from the two previous ones. Bruce’s Seven Faces of Information Literacy model is interesting from a constructionist point of view. With this work, she proposed “a relational model of information literacy to stand alongside the ‘behavioural’ model which presently dominates information literacy scholarship” (Bruce, 1997, p. 1). Bruce’s model was created from a study of 60 higher education faculty members’ conceptions of information literacy. She described it as a “phenomenography of information literacy” (1997). Bruce, quoting Marton, proposes that these seven faces form an “anatomy of awareness” (Marton, 1995 cited in Bruce, 1997) of information literacy whose categories are formed by how people conceive information literacy.

The major difference between Bruce’s model and those existing at that time was that most of the other models emphasised one or a limited number of ways to experience information literacy. In her model, she includes elements such as technological aspects, computer literacy and media literacy (Bruce, 1997, p. 163).

The seven faces of information literacy (Bruce, 1997, p. 110)

1. The information technology conception – IL is seen as using information technology for information retrieval and communication.

2. The information source conception – IL is seen as finding information. 3. The information process conception – IL is seen as executing a process. 4. The information control conception – IL is seen as controlling information.

5. The knowledge construction conception - IL is seen as building up a personal knowledge base in a new area of interest.

6. The knowledge extension conception – IL is seen as working with knowledge and personal perspectives adopted in such a way that novel insights are gained.

7. The wisdom conception - IL is seen as using information wisely for the benefit of others.

Limberg stated in 2000 that the model by Christine Bruce was richer than other available models at that time because it extended information literacy understanding to knowledge construction and ultimately to wisdom (Limberg, 2000).

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3.1.4. Online reading comprehension

In 2004, Donald Leu et al. presented a model of new literacies. Their reason to propose a new theory was related to the changes in literacy in the context of new technologies. This theory takes a clearer stand on knowledge acquisition than that of multiliteracy, even if their origins are somewhat similar. The researchers state that in the age of multitude of information it is crucial to educate pupils on new literacies related to information use and access to knowledge (Leu Jr, Kinzer, Coiro, & Cammack, 2004). The model was a result of an empirical study with 11pupils of the 6th _{grade in the}

United States. They were selected from amongst over 150 pupils by their teachers according to a set of requirements (Coiro & Dobler, 2007). The model stages are built to process model according to a specific learning task.

The model from pedagogical studies chosen to be included in the present study alongside the models from information science is the Online Reading Comprehension

model by Donald Leu et al. (2011), which is closely connected to the model of new

literacies. Thus, this can be considered to be a continuation of the tradition of reading comprehension. Leu et al. describe online reading comprehension as follows:

Online reading comprehension, on the other hand, consists of a process of problem- based inquiry across many different online information sources, requiring several recursive reading practices: a) reading online to identify important questions, b) reading online to locate information, c) reading online to critically evaluate information, d) reading online to synthesize information, and e) reading online to communicate information. (Leu et al., 2011, p. 7)

Snow (2002) advanced a definition of reading comprehension stating that it entails an interaction of three issues: the reader, whose purpose is to comprehend; the text, which is the object of comprehension; and the activity where this comprehension takes place. All of these are situated in the context where reading comprehension takes place. Snow proposes that reading comprehension is “the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language” (Snow, 2002, p. 11). Relatedly, Almasi affirms that readers use the clues in the text and their prior understanding of the issue to create meaning while reading (Almasi, 2003, p. 74).

Carita Kiili (2012) studied online reading in individual and social reading situations. Kiili studied how secondary school pupils in Finland locate information on the Internet, how they evaluate the material, and how they work together during a collaborative writing assignment. Her study showed that reading as an activity in learning situations is affected by poor online reading comprehension; for example, the pupils paid more attention to relevance of the information than to its credibility.

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