Tech ed students strut their stuff: information literacy and a practical assignment.

This study seeks to explore the experience of technology education students in finding and using information for a practical assignment. This engineering assignment required students to design, manufacture and test a strut, then complete a folio on the process and its practical application. Understanding how this particular group of students finds and uses information will lead to designing better information literacy education.

The findings are discussed with reference to relevant literature and excerpts from interviews with the students. Comparisons with the findings of other studies are drawn. Implications for teaching practice conclude this report.

Rationale

The Bachelor of Technology Education is a four-year undergraduate program that prepares teachers for careers in technology education, industrial and engineering technology and design. Prior to the new curriculum and focus on design and use of technology, this program used to educate manual arts teachers. The cohort is predominately male and comprises about 50% school leavers and 50% mature aged, generally from a trade background. Much of the program is applied and the assessment often comprises folios, workshop activities, design and construction using problem-based learning, and materials such as wood, metals and plastic.

Each year in semester one, I conduct an information literacy activity on the library catalogue for first-year students and a class on finding journal articles using databases with the second year students. Both classes are hands-on, integrated into the curriculum and use the course assessment as the focus of the activities. In the case of the second year students, the assessment requires the students to write a research-based essay on a teaching experience of their choice.

While the feedback on these classes is generally positive, I do not feel they successfully cater to the uniqueness of this particular cohort or degree. Anecdotally, technology education students are not regular library users and generally do not like to ask for assistance. When they are faced with assessment items that require library research, they often experience difficulty using the library's print and electronic resources. Many give up and never try again after encountering obstacles.

I believe that if I can better understand the experience of this particular cohort in finding and using information for their predominantly practical assignments, then I can help them make the connections when they have to do library research. Biggs tells us 'sound knowledge is based on interconnections.' (1) With greater understanding, I can 'choose familiar examples first, get students to build on their own experiences, draw and explain parallels while teaching, use cross-references, design curricula that draw on connections' and improve the learning outcomes of students. (2)

Literature Review

In the information literacy literature there has been a shift from researching the view of experts to researching people's experiences. This research, which assumes a student-centred focus, has concentrated on:

* people's information seeking and use and information behaviour (3)

* the process or steps people follow to seek information, (4) and

* the attributes an information literate person needs to possess. (5)

 
   According to Case, 
   information seeking is a conscious effort to acquire information in 
   response to a need or a gap in your knowledge ... information 
   behaviour encompasses information seeking as well as the totality of 
   other unintentional or passive behaviours (such as glimpsing or 
   encountering information), as well as purposive behaviours that do 
   not involve information seeking, such as actively avoiding 
   information. (6) 

However, as Lupton observes, Case does not include information use in information behaviour. (7) The use of information is critical as it provides the link between information seeking and learning. Information use encompasses a spectrum of higher order activities such as critical thinking, reading, synthesising data, developing arguments and academic writing.

In her study of 25 high school students, Limberg investigated the variation in people's experiences in finding and using information. (8) More recently Lupton examined students' experience of information literacy when researching an essay in a first year undergraduate course. (9)

I have chosen to focus on the experience and conceptions of technology education students in finding and using information for a practical assignment, thereby capturing both the purposive and non-purposive information seeking behaviours and information use. Information seeking and use form a component of the information literacy experience. Therefore, in identifying information literacy as a broader educational concept, this study draws on higher education, information literacy and information seeking and use literature.

Methodology

A one-on-one interview with six second year technology education students was conducted. Each interview took 30-40 minutes and was tape-recorded. The questions were open-ended. The first question ascertained what stage the students were up to with their assignment. The second question asked the students to describe how they went about finding and using information for the various stages of the project. Students were preselected as indicated in table 1.

The study focussed on finding and using information for an engineering project, which comprised the design, manufacture and testing of a 200mm long lightweight strut able to withstand a working load of 4kN with a factor of safety of 1.5; and compilation of a folio that detailed the investigation, ideation, results, evaluation and…