University of Nebraska at Omaha DigitalCommons@UNO Criss Library Faculty Publications Dr. Criss Library 2018 The Effect of Elaborative Interrogation on the Synthesis of Ideas from Multiple Sources of Information Omer Farooq Kent State University - College of Communication and Information Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.edu/crisslibfacpub Part of the Educational Psychology Commons, and the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation Farooq, Omer, "The Effect of Elaborative Interrogation on the Synthesis of Ideas from Multiple Sources of Information" (2018). Criss Library Faculty Publications.edu/crisslibfacpub/34 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dr. Criss Library at DigitalCommons@UNO.
It has been accepted for inclusion in Criss Library Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UNO. For more information, please contact unodigitalcommons@unomaha. The Effect of Elaborative Interrogation on the Synthesis of Ideas from Multiple Sources of Information A dissertation submitted to The College of Communication and Information of Kent State University in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Omer Farooq May, 2018 Dissertation written by Omer Farooq B., The Ohio State University, 2000 M., Kent State University, 2012 Ph., Kent State University, 2018 Approved by Dr. Miriam Matteson, Ph., Co-Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Dr.
Bradley Morris, Ph., Co-Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Dr. Danielle Coombs, Ph., Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Dr. John Dunlosky, Ph., Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Dr. Meghan Harper, Ph., Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Accepted by Dr.
Danielle Coombs, Ph., Chair, Doctoral Studies Committee Dr. Amy Reynolds, Ph., Dean, College of Communication and Information Table of Contents Page TABLE OF CONTENTS. iii LIST OF FIGURES .v LIST OF TABLES .1 Background of the Problem .1 Instruction in Academic Libraries .3 Statement of the Problem .11 Significance of the Study. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE .13 Active-Constructive-Interactive Framework .17 Multiple Documents Comprehension .24 Selection of Topic and Information Sources .27 Independent and Dependent Measures .29 Coding Synthesis Paragraphs.37 Assessment of Hypotheses.
46 Implications for Practice and Future Research. Association of College & Research Libraries Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Qualtrics Survey: Task Instructions, Demographic Questions, Elaborative Prompts (Treatment Conditions Only), and Texts .67 iv List of Figures Figure Page 1. Number of participants per group.
Mean differences in transformation performance among groups. Mean differences in integration performance among groups .43 v List of Tables Table Page 1. Information Literacy Frames. Implementation of Elaborative Interrogation Prompts.
Active-Constructive-Interactive Framework with Characteristics, Overt Activities, and Cognitive Processes. Description of Information Sources on Climate Change. Description of Steps in the Procedure. Operational Definitions of the Writing Measures.
Demographic Characteristics of the Sample. Distribution (n) of Age Cohorts Among Conditions. Distribution (n) of Educational Levels Among Conditions. Distribution (n) of Gender Among Conditions.
Descriptive Analysis on Variables Assessing Transformation and Integration Performance. Unadjusted Condition Means (M) and Standard Deviations (SD) and Adjusted Condition Means (M) and Standard Errors (SE) for Transformation Performance with Interest in Climate Change and Educational Level as Covariates. Unadjusted Condition Means (M) and Standard Deviations (SD) and Adjusted Condition Means (M) and Standard Errors (SE) for Integration Performance with Interest in Climate Change and Educational Level as Covariates .43 vi Acknowledgments The last five years have been an amazing journey. The kindness of many people made this milestone possible.
I owe a debt of gratitude to my co-chairs, Drs. Miriam Matteson and Brad Morris. Matteson, thank you for being my strongest advocate throughout my Masters and Doctoral studies, giving me rides to conferences, recommending me for research and teaching assistantships, writing countless recommendation letters, speaking with faculty search committees on my behalf, and most importantly, for telling me “I totally believe you can do this. Morris, thank you for teaching me the nuances of research design and implementation, helping me draw connections between educational psychology and information literacy instruction, and reminding me to always ask: “How did they measure it?” I would also like to thank my committee members: Drs.
Danielle Coombs, John Dunlosky, and Meghan Harper for their generous support and encouragement throughout this project. Many thanks to my friend and colleague Molly Owens for her help with the coding. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, and best friend, Danielle, for standing with me through every twist and turn of this process. Your love and support helped me overcome all obstacles in my path.
This work is dedicated to my parents. Thank you Ma and Daddy for all your sacrifices in helping me get to this point. And yes, I am finally done with grad school! vii 1 Chapter I Introduction As the information landscape has expanded in the last few decades, students face the ever challenging tasks of navigating a complex, disorderly landscape as well as synthesizing ideas from multiple sources of information. Academic libraries support the institutional goals by providing information literacy instruction to students on how to find and use information to fulfill their academic goals.
The current predominant model of information literacy instruction in academic libraries, however, mainly focuses on how to find relevant information sources for their academic information needs but overlooks how students use gathered information sources to synthesize ideas. The Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (ACRL, 2016) highlights the ability to synthesize ideas from multiple sources of information as one of the key knowledge practices through which students show their development. The purpose of this experimental study is to examine the effectiveness of elaborative interrogation instructional strategy on students’ ability to integrate and transform ideas gathered from multiple sources of information. Background of the Problem Academic libraries have a long, rich history in supporting the educational goals of the university.
Terms such as library orientation, library instruction, bibliographic instruction, and user education have all been part of professional vocabulary (Grassian & Kaplowitz, 2009). The term “information literacy” was first used in 1974 in a report written on behalf of the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science by Paul Zurkowski (ALA, 1989). According to Zurkowski, an information literate individual is someone who has learned to use a wide range of information sources in order to solve problems at work and in his or her daily life (ALA, 2 1989). The modern information literacy movement of the 1980’s and 1990’s acknowledged and built upon the rich history of bibliographic instruction.
The American Library Association (ALA) presidential committee described the information literate individual as someone who has the ability to recognize the information need and the ability to locate, evaluate, and use information effectively (ALA, 1989). An information literate individual is one who has learned how to learn. Reviewing the numerous definitions throughout the last few decades, Grassian and Kaplowitz (2009) argue that information literacy has been described in a variety of ways—as a process, a skill set, a competence, an attitudinal or personality trait, a set of abilities, a way to help people contribute positively to the learning community and to society, and a construct that is created by the ways in which a person interacts with information. Critical thinking and evaluation as well as the ethical use of information have all been cited as integral to conceptualizing information literacy.
Later, scholars such as Swanson (2004) and Elmborg (2006) stressed that to be information literate in the 21st century, one must understand how information works as social, political, and cultural force and that our interactions with information contribute to these forces—giving the concept a critical outlook (Grassian & Kaplowitz, 2009). Emphasizing the significance of instruction in academic libraries, Wang (2013) argues that the digital revolution had a strong impact on the evolution of library instruction. Instruction became an integral part of academic libraries with the focus on competencies in information and communication technologies, user-centered approaches to teaching and learning, outreach, and learning outcomes assessment (Wang, 2013). With the information age, academic libraries saw tremendous growth in reliance on electronic information sources for teaching, learning, and 3 research (Wang, 2013).
This reliance prompted formalized instruction and assessment of students’ ability to locate and use information effectively. Instruction in Academic Libraries The Association of Colleges and Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education was the first document that guided information literacy instruction and assessment in higher education. Since its implementation, the ACRL standards were widely adopted by academic librarians to guide information literacy instruction and assessment (Grassian & Kaplowitz, 2009). Information literacy in the ACRL standards is defined as a set of abilities requiring individuals to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use the needed information effectively (ACRL, 2000).
Additionally, the standards codify performance indicators for outcomes for information literacy as 1) determining the nature and extent of the information needed; 2) accessing needed information effectively; 3) evaluating information critically; 4) using information to accomplish a specific purpose; and 5) understanding the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information and using information ethically and legally (ACRL, 2000). Even though the standards explicitly stated performance indicators and indicative outcomes that could be used to design information literacy instruction, they were critiqued by many practitioners and scholars as having a narrow, skill-based, and mechanistic view of information literacy. Foasberg (2015) argues that the standards, which define information literacy as a set of abilities and enumerate in some detail what the information literate student should be able to accomplish, advance a positivistic understanding of the nature of information— imagining it as a commodity external to the student. The standards portray students as individuals who acquire these skills through practice.
In the language of the standards, 4 information usually refers to artifacts rather than their contents. Thus, the standards present information sources as goods that can be acquired and that the student acquires a commodity, rather than participating in a conversation or integrating information sources with her existing knowledge base (Foasberg, 2015). Another critique of this decontextualized, skill-based information literacy instruction (Elmborg, 2006; Foasberg, 2015; Swanson, 2004; 2005) originate from the standpoint of rhetoric and composition, both of which consider context, conversation, and active participation in literacy of all kinds. When a student engages in research, she does not simply extract and record information, as the second standard suggests, but rather wrestles with the content, draws connection with what she already knows, and generates more questions (Foasberg, 2015).
In response to these critiques of the standards, the latest conceptualization of information literacy came in the form of ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (ACRL, 2016). The framework includes interconnected information literacy threshold concepts (Meyer & Land, 2005) as well as the notion of metaliteracy proposed by Mackey and Jacobson (2011) and offers a renewed vision of information literacy as an overarching set of abilities that unifies such concepts as media literacy, visual literacy, digital literacy, and information literacy in which students are both consumers and creators of information and are active participants in collaborative spaces (ACRL, 2016). The notion of metaliteracy demands behavioral, affective, cognitive, and metacognitive engagement with the constantly evolving information ecosystem. The framework also includes knowledge practices which are demonstrations of ways in which learners can increase their understanding of these information literacy concepts and dispositions which describe ways in which to address the affective, attitudinal, or valuing dimensions of learning (ACRL, 2016).
5 This new and expanded conceptualization of information literacy in the framework emphasizes dynamism, flexibility, individual growth, and metacognitive engagement with information (Foasberg, 2015). The student in the framework is replaced by the learner who is on a continuum—growing from a novice into an expert. The framework, thus, not only acknowledges but underscores that even novice learners are capable of evaluating information sources and integrating ideas derived from a variety of sources. The new framework of information literacy for higher education (ACRL, 2016) depends on these core ideas of metaliteracy, with special focus on metacognition, or critical self- reflection, as crucial to becoming more self-directed in a rapidly changing information ecosystem.