1. Teachers intervene in students’ learning to help them to formulate questions, encouraging research rather than seeking discrete pieces of information (that is, facts), and devote time and effort to discussing with students the types of answers various types of questions might lead to.

2. Teachers observe a range of different aspects of students’ information seeking including awareness of relevance criteria or judgments about enough information in situations of overload, and complement general guidance in the critical assessment of information sources with advice directly related to students’ tasks.

3. Teachers focus on content in learning assignments (rather than procedures and technology) by challenging students’ knowledge, leading students to conflicting information sources and negotiating learning goals to reach a common understanding of what the task is about (Limberg 2005; Limberg et al. 2008).

Research questions and data collection

The research tasks introduced in the study that this chapter is reporting were broken down into four specific research questions:

The first two research questions cover teacher trainees’ experiences of information seeking and use by focusing first on challenges in general and then on the challenges that trainees find transferable to teaching. One should note that not all experiences might be considered as challenges and that some might be perceived as challenging but not transferable to teaching. The latter two research questions cover the trainees’ conceptions of challenges in and ideas for practical solutions in teaching information seeking and use.

As the study was conducted at the early stage of an inquiry into teacher trainees’ conceptions of information literacy instruction, an inductive, data-driven approach was adopted. The researcher interviewed the twenty-five teacher trainees recruited for the study individually, in Finnish, in May 2008, at the end of their training period. The questions, translated here from the Finnish, used to guide the semi-structured interviews were:

The data gathered consists of full transcripts of approximately two and half hours of tape-recorded interviews. The interview guide questions were emailed to the interviewees before their interviews, but whether or not they familiarized themselves with the questions in advance is not known.

Experiences of challenges in information seeking and use

Where to search was a challenge concerning the choice of information channel, which was experienced particularly at the beginning of planning lessons on offbeat topics. A related theme is concerned with the Difficulty to find or access relevant information sources at all. One trainee, for example, had discovered that finding photographs of everyday life from 1960s was next to impossible.

The challenge concerning Settling on what is enough is illustrated by the following expression: ‘in a way they are against each other, in one way, casualness and criticalness, should I check for more sources, and on the other, the limited amount of time’. The theme captures the challenge of deciding how much information is needed for a particular lesson and balancing it with the limited amount of time available. Discerning the essential or the important in the amount of available information, to answer questions such as ‘what to choose for the lesson, what would serve students’ best’, was experienced as a challenge by many. The two themes are close in meaning, but the former focuses on how much information is needed for a lesson and the latter on the challenge of framing the topic.

Finding information of acceptable quality illustrates the challenge of finding ‘trustworthy’, ‘accurate’, ‘deep’ and ‘diverse’ information. The trainees evaluated Suitability of information on the basis of what they thought the class could comprehend and how difficult they rated the information. A trainee said that it was challenging ‘to find the information that is the most useful for the students, such [information] that is understandable for them as well and not just for me’. Few trainees perceived a challenge to choose due to Differences in textbooks.

The theme Presenting information encompasses the challenge of processing usable ‘pedagogic content’ of retrieved information and presenting it to students in a way they can understand. A related theme encompasses the challenges of translating or reading information in a Foreign language because of lack of time or insufficient vocabulary. The themes are related, as they both involve transforming information from one form to another, but the latter is characterized by the unique ‘language’ element, which was given a priority.

Experiences transferable to teaching information seeking and use

A general theme captures the experiences of Information seeking expressed in various level of specificity. Some trainees were more general, citing ‘being more systematic and flexible in information seeking’ as the experiences of potential use in teaching. Others were more practical: ‘start with single words rather than a long sentences if googling something’, as one trainee responded.

The most frequently articulated theme in this unit of analysis is about Assessing information sources. Trustworthiness and authorship were given as the criteria. A trainee elaborates the theme: ‘The issue of trustworthiness … is something I’ve clearly learned about, what skills I can call my strongest are the ones I can pass on to the students, that question the original texts.’ A related theme encompasses the experiences of Comparing information sources to verify a piece of information. A theme about Discerning the essential was identified in this unit of analysis as well. A trainee explained how she had grown to use the contents (of books) to focus only to the most essential in lessons and the experience helped her to advise students to try to grasp the whole rather than the details.

Some trainees found that their experiences of information seeking and use were Not transferable to teaching at all. The theme was developed irrespective of the trainees who hesitated in their responses but eventually did.

Perceived challenges in teaching information seeking and use

The most frequently articulated theme on the perceived challenges in teaching information seeking and use encompasses critical Assessment of information sources. The trainees did not elaborate the substance of being critical, but many did express that they wanted students to be discerning, in the sense of not being satisfied with the first source retrieved. In addition, one trainee said: ‘the biggest challenge is that, in a way, you guide [students] to trustworthy information and teach them how to assess trustworthiness and regard certain information sources critically.’

A theme was identified from two almost diametrically opposed expressions concerning Information seeking instruction and the web; one trainee perceived a challenge in getting students started in searching information on the web (that is, the use of an information channel), whereas another wanted students to use other information channels besides the web (that is, the choice of an information channel). The theme, getting students to Understand subject content, is open to interpretation. It captures the idea that learning (history) goes beyond seeking facts (that is, ready-made answers) and that students should learn to discern the essential in the amount of relevant information.

The trainees found preventing Plagiarism—manifested as copying and pasting information from Wikipedia—to be a challenge. A trainee wanted to make sure that students understand ‘what it means that they are seeking information…and they should in a way rewrite [the retrieved text] and not copy a word for a word from it’. The theme about students’ Lack of motivation covers the trainees’ perception that students expect the teacher to provide the information rather than assignments to seek information.

A major theme was identified in expressions about Teacher trainees’ lack of skills’. ‘I feel that my information seeking skills are not necessarily the best possible’, was a typical expression; ‘I can’t use [the Internet], so I get the books, because they feel more safe’, was another more specific expression of the same theme. Some trainees framed the challenge as being ‘as good as students’. Fewer in number were the expressions concerning Students’ lack of skills in using information and communication technologies to search for information. A minor theme comprised the expressions on how the curriculum and tight schedules reserved for subject teaching made Finding the time for teaching information seeking and use difficult.

Ideas for Internet-based exercises

A theme about setting up the Task assignment was identified. A trainee had realized that

However, the conceptions of the task assignment varied in the freedom given to students: ‘[I gave] really specific instructions, that one had to proceed from a site to the next one according to the worksheet, and I noticed that it was quite necessary that [the task] is well instructed and that they know all along where they are going next.’ A theme related to the task assignment captures the idea of Verifying the availability of relevant information before the task is initiated. (The logical connection between these two conceptions is not explicit in the data.)

Two themes related to but articulated independently of the Task assignment theme captured the trainees’ need to control students’ information-seeking behaviour. The theme Keeping the class in control captures the idea of keeping students occupied with the task by preventing them from seeking entertainment in unwanted web pages. A stricter variant of the theme captures the idea of Restricting access to a few pre-selected web pages only.

A theme about Information seeking instruction was identified: ‘One should at least in the beginning tell and teach about different channels through which one can begin to search information’, responded a trainee. The focus of the theme is not on the form of the task assignment as above but on ensuring that students have the necessary knowledge of available information channels and sources. The focus of a closely related theme is on Guiding students, with active intervention in their task performance rather than with advice given before the performance. A trainee outlined an exercise:

The Assessment of information sources is a theme aptly illustrated in the following: ‘I would try to demonstrate to the students…1 would try to make them realize that not all information on the Net is necessarily that scientific or accurate.’ Another theme captures the idea of students using a Diversity of information sources as opposed to leaning from a single source. One trainee meant diversity in the sense of using information in different forms and media. Few trainees brought up the idea of Comparing information sources, but one elaborated particularly and wanted to plan an exercise ‘where [students] have to seek information…from various different sources and specifically pay attention to the differences in the content…so it would become clear that there’s not just that one truth but [the truth] can be expressed differently in different places’. The trainees articulated ideas about Processing information to address students’ tendency to copy and paste acquired information directly.

What challenges do teacher trainees experience in seeking and using information for lesson plans?

Andrew Madden and his colleagues (2005) conducted a survey on practising teachers’ conceptions of using the Internet in teaching. The results show that younger teachers had more experience in using the Internet than older teachers. The older teachers found it difficult to use search engines, were less confident in their ability to use the Internet, less convinced of its importance in teaching, used it less with classes, felt under more pressure to use the Internet, believed that students know more than they do about the Internet and had more confidence in students’ ability to use the Internet to search for information (Madden et al. 2005). Penny Moore (2002) reports on a study of practising teachers who had difficulties in distinguishing between relevant and irrelevant information and perceived themselves as more able to use the old rather than the new technologies.

The findings of the study reported in this chapter show that the teacher trainees’ did not consider the use of the Internet as a challenge, even though they were aware of the problems in achieving their search goals with the new technology. The trainees gave descriptions of experiences concerning information seeking and use that were similar to those who participated in the pilot study (Tanni, Sormunen & Syvänen 2008). The majority of the challenges identified were related to use of information—discerning the essential, assessing, processing and translating retrieved information with the understanding of the class in mind. The trainees perceived also that it was not enough to consider the authorship of an information source only; the content of information provided in the source had to be suitable—usable for the purpose of teaching someone else. It is reasonable to conclude that the teacher trainees are aware of a range of different issues related to seeking and using information through their own experiences and that they use higher-order thinking skills successfully for the task.

What experiences do teacher trainees consider transferable to teaching information seeking and use?

The number of trainees who cited finding information of acceptable quality as a challenge was less than a half the number of trainees who found the experience of assessing information sources to be transferable to teaching. Likewise, the number of trainees who found the choice of an information channel as a challenge (see the theme Where to search) is half the number of trainees who found their various experiences of information seeking to be transferable to teaching. Further, only a few trainees considered the challenge of Discerning the essential transferable.

While the findings are not completely clear, it seems that the trainees found their experiences in using higher-order thinking skills less transferable to teaching than their experiences in applying practical skills. The complexity of the range of experiences available for the trainees to exploit in teaching, including interpretation and generation of information and negotiation involving students’ comprehension and available resources, was reduced to the more manageable recommendations of where to seek information and how to assess the authority of information sources. These findings are supported by earlier research (for example, Limberg & Folkesson 2006; Williams & Wavell 2007), where teachers’ focus on practical and procedural aspects of information literacy is highlighted.

What challenges do teacher trainees perceive in teaching information seeking and use?

The trainees found that their experiences of assessing information sources would be applicable for teaching information seeking and use and that teaching the assessment of information sources would be a major challenge. It was unexpected to see that so many teacher trainees found their own information searching and ICT skills lacking. The use of technology did not emerge as a major challenge in the trainees’ experiences of seeking and using information for lesson plans, a finding consistent with those of the pilot study (Tanni, Sormunen & Syvänen 2008). Madden and his colleagues (2005) found out that most (72%) practising teachers are confident in their ability to use the Internet, although half of the teachers studied found that students know more about the Internet than they do. The findings might be an indication of the trainees’ low self-efficacy because of the lack of training in teaching information searching using new technologies, if not an indication of an actual lack in the trainees’ skills.

Although the trainees did articulate themes that focused on higher-order thinking (preventing plagiarism and getting students to understand and discern subject content), they articulated equally the themes that focused on lower-order skills, or even on the rudimentary issues of organizing a class teaching information seeking and use. If a trainee struggles to find the time for information literacy instruction (see Madden et al. 2005) and finds students’ ICT skills lacking or the students unmotivated to seek information independently, it is not surprising that the teacher does not have far-reaching goals for integrating information seeking and use instruction into subject teaching.

The perception of students’ lack of motivation, if accurate, could indicate students’ reactions to teachers’ outsider applications of new technologies. Another interpretation is that it is the students who are stuck with the school mentality, expect that the teacher to be the sole source of knowledge and find task assignments requiring independent information seeking as curious exceptions of this rule (see Lankshear & Knobel 2003, pp. 30-1). As for the trainees’ perception of students’ lack of skills, Bennett, Maton and Kervin (2008) point out that students might indeed know how to use the Internet for their own purposes, but that this knowledge might not be applicable in searching for information using new technologies for school assignments.

What ideas do teacher trainees have for Internet-based exercises?

The findings show that the trainees’ ideas for intervention in students’ tasks are limited to advising them about the procedure of information seeking instead of addressing the content of students’ tasks directly. The findings include the notion of the teacher phrasing ‘good’ questions for students in the task assignment, but the conception of intervening in a student’s task to help them to formulate research questions is not present in the data (see Limberg et al. 2008). The trainees did acknowledge certain aspects of information seeking, but the concept of enough information, although it was perceived as a challenge in information seeking, was not addressed in the ideas for the exercise. There are some indications of the trainees leading students to conflicting information sources to challenge their knowledge, but the reasoning is not explicitly articulated in the data (see Limberg et al. 2008). The trainees cited few examples of their own teaching and did not discuss the ideas for the exercise in relation to the content of their subject teaching (see Williams & Wavell 2007). The findings add to the body of research demonstrating that both teachers’ and teacher trainees’ interactions with students tend to focus more on procedural issues, and only few know how to use questioning to focus discussion on what pupils are learning and help them to develop their ideas (see Childs et al. 2007; Limberg et al. 2008; Williams & Wavell 2007).

For the most part, the trainees’ ideas constitute general goals rather than practical solutions for teaching information seeking and use. Learning outcomes are described, but means of achieving them are rarely articulated. For example, the assessment of information sources, which the trainees identified as a challenge in teaching information seeking and use, re-emerges in the ideas for the exercise, but the trainees did not go beyond repeating their earlier views. Equally, the trainees did acknowledge the problem of plagiarism, but their ideas for the most part fall short of practical solutions. One trainee felicitously pointed out that just by telling the students to be critical does not carry one very far in the classroom. It is important to keep in mind the discrepancy found by Limberg and Folkesson (2006) between teachers’ conceptions of the goals of information literacy instruction and what they actually engage with in teaching. It seems that both teacher trainees and practising teachers do not always have the means to address issues they have perceived in their students’ learning (Childs et al. 2007; Williams & Wavell 2007).

The findings show also that the trainees used learning assignments as a device to direct and manage students’ learning in advance. This and a number of other themes—verification of the availability of relevant information, keeping students away from unwanted web pages and restricting access to particular web sites—suggest that the trainees saw that it was vital to remain in control of the situation. Ann Childs and her colleagues (2007) point out that teacher trainees might see exercises to be ways of keeping in control of the class as much as carefully considered pedagogic devices. Lankshear and Knobel (2003, pp. 74-7) argue that attempts to tightly regulate students’ information behaviour (for example, by restricting access to selected web pages on the Internet) are a demonstration of outsider mentality, which alienates already skilled students and prevents others from learning by doing and experimenting with the technology.

• regardless of using higher-order thinking skills in their own information seeking and use, lower-order skills dominate teacher trainees’ conceptions of information literacy instruction, and;

• teacher trainees do recognize a range of problems in students’ information behaviour, such as plagiarism and the use of few information sources, but do not seem to be able to offer practical solutions to address such problems.

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