The students' knowledge and expectations about the learning activity were often tightly bound with thos e of the criterial task, thus the two will be discussed together. In general, students made �onsiderably fewer statements about these aspects of the l earning situation than they did about the materials with which they had to work. This cannot be taken as e vidence that they knew more about the ma terial s than the acti vi t y, but it ma y indicate that
features of the library system and books were more salient to students during the interview and were a more f amiliar topic for discussion.
That students know project assignments vary in
requirements for content and format can be inferred from student questioning about task parameters. Five s tudents sought information about the number of questions they should tackle and similarly, five asked about the type of questions to be included. For example, Subject 17 w anted to know whether she could ask questions for which she already had answers, while Subjects 20 and 21 e xplored the scope of the information required were there any limits? Could the s tudent follow any line of questioning? Could all questions be about one type of bird? Everyone else
assumed that they knew what was involved in the task although they had completed only two projects under the guidance of their present form t eacher. They did not
spontaneously question evaluation criteria at all. However, asked how many questions they would normally attempt, they were in fairly close agreement. Five students thought
three or f our questions were enough, four others opted for five to eight questions and one student claimed he would
do ten questions. This was hastily revised downwards when the interviewer accidently allowed her surprise to show! This student (Subject 22> was the only one to enquire whether a booklet would be a suitable format for the end product, everyone else just went ahead.
The task of formulating questions attracted some s tudent comment. Subject 11 noted that for topic work in the previous year (Standard 4) "we didn't really make out questions, we just did it generally". Subject 8 (recently arrived in New Zealand from overseas) said questions were usually set by teachers but other students were able to compare the ease of completing projects using teacher given questions with those in which they generated their own. Subject 20 p referred to choose her own questions and Subject 17 (in common with several others) found question formulation difficult. She also observed that making a contract to answer certain questions is very limiting as she often thinks of "better" que�tions when she begins
searching for informa tion. To her the contract was binding. This cannot be said of the other students, since only 48% of questions set during interviews were actually answered. The other 52% seemed to be substitutes tailored to fit the informa tion found.
Some of the students' assumptions about what is involved in information retrieval tasks and about the
nature of the criterial task were apparent in their efforts to define the information needed. Three students (Subjects 6, 8 and 9) stated that the questions they set themselves should extend the knowledge of the people who would
eventually read the project. Subject 8 put it most eloquently: .
S8: I think most people know where they (birds)
li ve so if somebody was going to read my project, they might not want to know, read something that they already know. They might know that birds live in trees.
Interviewer: So when you write a project, do you write it to tell other people about the subject?
S8: I write it to give information like a book or something.
Subjects 17 and 20 seemed to agree with these students in that they both rejected question ideas
"because most people know that". The basic requirement as they saw it was that the information included had to hold the attention of the reader.
At least one student (Subject 12) had some conception of what types of information were available in books. He rejected two questions that came to mind <what type of climate does a sparrow need to live in? and why do birds eat what they eat?) because "there's not, you wouldn't be able to find much information on that". This was
essentially an untested prediction but three other
students m ade similar predictions while actually carrying out searches. The effect of such predictions can be gauged from a study �sing adult information searchers i n which Saracevic a n d h i s colleagues (1987) found that
expectations about what is public knowledge clearly influenced what was found.
To some degree students did know that the type of question asked constrains the activity that follows. For example, Subject 12 suggested that What different types of birds are there? implied listing every bird in a particular book, which would be boring. On the other hand, Subject 21 did not consider detailing all the birds in existence,
preferring to suggest .that the answer to that same
question would require descriptions and drawings. Neither considered whether their method of answering the question would meet a teacher's requirements for the criterial task.
In general, s tudents had little conception of the
activity necessary to complete the research task �hey set themselves. Most questions were broad and rather vague, as can be s een from the f ollowing examples:
What kinds of birds are there? What do they eat? What birds are near extinction? Where do they live? What are birds in danger of? Which birds camouflage?
Without some notion of the size of the task and what it involves students may not be able to re-define the information need in terms of questions that can
realistically be answered within a given time-frame and range of abilities. Some refinement of questions did occur during the course of searching, as will be discussed later, but at this stage of the data analysis the overall
impression was that students' knowledge of the learning activity was insufficient to allow extended planning that integrated the activities essential to each phase of the information retrieval process. It appeared that they were forced to progress through the task phases in a piecemeal manner. There was one exception. Subject 14 made no direct statements about the learning activity and only two comments about the criterial task but demonstrated a high level of knowledge. He proceeded quickly and efficiently from the start of the interview and seemed to be "on automatic pilot". He quickly selected two ducks that he would like to know more about and decided that information about their size, general appearance and habitat would be appropriate. It was almost as if he had a formula that he applied to all project tasks and a ready-made plan that would get him through the task as quickly as. possible. His approach to the task is explored in the section on
executive control.
The students were not expected to locate sufficient information for their p�ojects during the interview period but ten did comment on the sufficiency bf the material found to answer their questions. Four (Subjects 3, 16, 18 and 21> were sure they would have to return to the library for more information but six others were at least partially satisfied with their efforts. Subject 14 said he had found enough to write one or two pages, which was all he thought it necessary to do, while Subject 23 thought he could write about one of the birds of interest and get more
that could be answered with single sentences - what is the wing-span of an albatross? where do they live? - and the interviewer had to agree with her that she had found
enough information to answer them. However, three students (Subjects 9, 19 and 22) were sure they had
sufficient information when in fact they had found virtually nothing that related to their questions. The issue here was not just the information found but the nature of the questions that students thought were appropriate to project work. There was no clear evidence that any student considered the questions formulated in terms of the criterial task of report production, yet the questions themselves dictated how much and what type of information would be needed.
Subject 18 was the only one to make direct comment on the final presentation and content of the report. She said "[The teacher] wants us to create our projects so they won't look scruffy, so they don't be a boring one." This seems to be in line with earlier comments about holding the reader's attention. Other comments from which it can be inferred that students are aware of teacher requirements included those from two students who noted that the final effort would have to be written in their own words (Subject 5 and 21>. Subject 21 was also aware that she might have to take information from several sources to find enough to write about. However, the project she handed in suggests that her approach was not one of integrating information, rather she s imply accumulated and presented it.
Further evidence that students held widely differing expectations about what would be required at the
evaluation stage of the task is apparent in the reports themselves. These varied from mostly artwork, with a couple of written sentences, to several pages of written text which often bore a close resemblance to the published works found.