the spirit of inquiry in information literacy

JOHN DEWEY'S WRITINGS CAN BE A THEORETICAL BASE FOR THE STUDY OF INFORMATION SKILLS. DEWEY ABHORRED ROTE MEMORIZATION OF FACTS AND BLAND REGURGITATION OF TRIVIA ON TESTS. COLLABORATIVE TEACHING OF INTEGRATED INFORMATION SKILLS ALIGNS NICELY WITH DEWEY'S WRITINGS. THIS ARTICLE PAIRS THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL LIBRARIANS INFORMATION LITERACY STANDARDS WITH DEWEY'S WRITINGS ON THINKING AND LEARNING.

Nearly a century ago, our society was going through a transformation from a farming society to an industrialist world. Today much of that change and upheaval is happening again, as the world changes from an economy based on manufacturing to one based on information. Communities are facing a global economy, demanding from schools highly skilled workers and, again, rethinking public education. The upheaval caused by new means of electronic communication can be argued to be similar to that once caused by the automobile, in that it allows virtual exploration of new territory, new possibilities, and new ways of making a living.

Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning, published in 1998 by the American Association of School Librarians and the Association for Educational Communication and Technology, is both a model and a plan for the implementation of information literacy skills in schools. Information power is best implemented by collaborating with classroom teachers to integrate information skills into classroom content. Dan Barron presented a theoretical platform for information power by using quotes from the works of Maslow, Dewey, Brunet, Rogers, Piaget, and other major educational theorists. As Barron noted, the school library profession needs more than a methodology and a curriculum. The profession must be able to directly tie these methodologies and curricula to major educational theorists (Barron, 1997). John Dewey is one of those major theorists. His writing on thinking, logic, and learning has direct relevance to school library work and provides a platform for the school library's place in inquiry learning.

John Dewey's work in educational theory made the scholar well-known but misunderstood. Open schools, allowing children to choose what they will and will not learn, whole language, and other interpretations and misinterpretations of progressive education plagued Dewey throughout his life. However, current research has shown a rethinking of the application of Dewey to modern educational practices (Garrison, 1995) and to a more realistic interpretation of his work. There are several basic key concepts to understanding Dewey's contribution to information literacy skills instruction.

Instrumentalism. Instrumentalism describes the relationship of knowledge and experience (Carlson, 1990). Before instrumentalism, there were two distinctly different definitions of thinking. One was the use of logic, defined as being purely cognitive and rational. The other was creativity, which is based on emotion. These two important parts of thinking--rational and creative--were seen as opposites. Dewey merged that thinking and redefined scientific experimentation as a process using both rational and creative thinking. In traditional thinking-skills programs, students gather facts via the rational process and are then encouraged to "do something creative" after learning the facts (Holder, 1995, p. 8). In the instrumentalist view, the thinking process is integrated. The creative ideas stimulate the rational interpretations, which then build and stimulate more rational interpretations. Both logic and creativity are present throughout the thinking process.

Knowledge. Dewey's theories on knowledge recognized the interdependence between the individual and the environment. When we "think we know" a fact (Dewey, 1948, p. 112), it must be viewed in the context in which it was created and the present context between the learner and his or her environment. Therefore, knowledge is not only unique to the individual but ever-changing. The opposite of this position is the spectator theory of knowledge, in which the learner stands apart and views reality from a detached perspective. When we treat students as spectators, we place even the most fascinating bit of knowledge, invention, or discovery in a rote drill and practice by reducing the long, painful, yet enthralling journey of discovery to a day, time, and place. A seventh grader who can recite the pertinent facts regarding the growth of crystals has a different understanding from the seventh grader who conducted experiments to watch crystals grow. The facts on the study sheet and the answers on the test may be the same for all students, but their knowledge regarding those facts is different.

Memorizing a list of facts and dates is far removed from the knowledge process that Dewey identified. The knowledge-gathering process moves from the old definition, of possessing facts, to a new definition, of a constantly growing and ever-changing body of knowledge--in other words, learning (Dewey, 1948). Dewey (1916) noted, "There is no accomplished knowledge, but only knowledge coming to be" (p. 13). Dewey considered learning to be a constantly changing process, as new ideas meshed with previous knowledge in the present and previous contexts.

Inquiry and thinking. In a book considered the best articulation of Dewey's views, Experience and Education (1938) criticized schools for not teaching students to think. Rather, schools taught an assortment of facts or specific business and vocational skills. Dewey saw thinking as a dynamic phenomenon--not the deep, still-water portrayal in literature but, rather, a series of storms or waves as conclusions are made, old theories are discarded, and new premises become obvious (Dewey, 1934). Thinking has two sides: one, the unformed ideas that will use the subject matter and, two, the content of the subject matter. Thinking uses experience as a set of facts to draw from and as a basis to compare and contrast previous experiences with new facts and data. Thinking is risky because the new conclusions to be drawn by the process are unpredictable (Dewey, 1916).

Dewey (1933) noted that the purpose of thinking was threefold. First, thinking can plan and direct activities. Second, thinking makes possible inventions to avoid problems or take advantage of situations. Third, thinking enhances the meaning of things by giving them context.

Dewey breaks down the process of reflective thought into the following. First are the suggestions, or the experience phase, when the mind leaps to possible conclusions and sets the stage for the problematic situation. This leads to a disorganized stage of accumulating facts. The speculative stage occurs next, which includes guessing, as well as making shape of the data. Reasoning, or the interaction between the ideas and the facts, leads to action and testing the final hypothesis to the situation (Dewey, 1916).

Carol Kuhlthau's information search process (1991) is reflective of the Dewey stages by its delineating the process into three realms: affective (feelings), cognitive (thoughts), and physical (actions). This is in agreement with the merging of emotion and thinking as a necessary part of the pragmatic instrumentalist view. Kuhlthau noted that a situation must be developed to create uncertainty--what Dewey would call experience. Experience is an active occurrence regardless of whether it is a learning activity (i.e., actually doing something) or a reflective thinking activity. In having an experience in education, one does something, an action, which, according to the laws of physics, has consequences. Each experience takes something from previous experiences and adds something to future experiences. Experience makes learning a continual process (Dewey, 1944).

Moving beyond mere regurgitation of facts means that more information will be learned because processes always create more learning than does a recitation of facts (Dewey, 1944). Acquiring knowledge is a misconception; instead, we should refer to inquiring knowledge, a phrase more reflective of the thinking and inquiry process.

What students do with their constantly evolving knowledge is important as well. The context as a way of measuring, of sharing information, becomes crucially important. A fact by itself, Dewey (1954) wrote, is not knowledge. It is fully known when it is published, shared, and socially accessible." "Record and communication are indispensable to knowledge" (p. 176).

The term information literacy was first used in the early 1970s with a meaning derived from the definitions of both information and literacy. Literacy, meaning the integration of listening, speaking, reading, writing, and critical thinking, takes on a deeper meaning when merged with technology and information tools.

With our rapidly changing world, an inquiry process based on the work of John Dewey makes sense for education today. New facts and data are constantly added to the existing store of knowledge, causing dramatic changes in what we think we know. As new knowledge is created, it sometimes turns widely accepted truths into falsehoods.

There is no doubt that there have been difficulties in managing and handling the information explosion of the last several decades. Research into information anxiety and information overload from adults to children underscores the need for skills in using the power of information. Information literacy is a process, incorporating location and access, information problem solving and decision making, and information utilization. It is composed of skills and attitudes. To be information literate means to continue to learn through life and to reshape the information needs resolution process. To have information is to be able to state a fact, but using that information to solve a problem is inquiry. The learner is motivated by the use of the information, not the finding of it (Doyle, 1994).

When discussing the thinking curriculum, Dewey (1938) noted, "Without rules, there is no game" (p. 55). Even though thinking begins creatively in a disorganized and unstructured way, allowing for the development of new ideas, the process of thinking should be structured and teacher directed. A thinking skills curriculum has, first, the construction of an environment compatible with experiential learning and, second, flexibility across a variety of domains (Holder, 1995). Best practices of teacher-librarians are directly applicable to this concept of a thinking skills curriculum. Teacher-librarians teach information skills directly to students, and they integrate information literacy skills through the incorporation of national information literacy standards into subject curricula.

Information literacy standards for student learning. Information Power (American Association of School Librarians & Association for Educational Communication and Technology, 1998) listed the American Association of School Librarians-approved standards for information literacy instruction. The nine standards are organized into three areas--information literacy, independent learning, and social awareness--and can be directly related to the Dewey theories of logic, thinking, and knowledge.

Standard 1: The student who is information literate accesses information efficiently and effectively.

Standard 2: The student who is information literate evaluates information critically and competently.

Standard 3: The student who is information literate uses information accurately and creatively. (American Association of School Librarians Association for Educational Communication and Technology, 1998, pp. 3-5)

Dewey's experiences observing his own children as infants lead him to believe that the instinct to learn is natural. Noting this natural inclination, he said that everyone conducts original research constantly, unless it is prevented. One preventive measure is the Way that schools are organized. Dewey claimed that the subject matter taught in schools--especially when the curriculum has been developed over the years and when using departmentalized teachers--may separate from real life (Dewey, 1944).

Collaboratively taught information literacy skills, as recommended in Information Power, break down the barriers between departmentalized curricula and bring real-life problems to the forefront. It is a reversal of the old style of teaching thinking skills, of dividing thinking into categories. In the recent past, teachers taught the skills of location and access, then the information retrieval skills, and then students were instructed what to do with what they found (Dewey, 1944).

It is generally believed that traditional library skills, taught in isolation, do not transfer to skills needed in later school years or to subject study requiring the application of those skills (Pickering, 1999). Dewey agreed and claimed that this method of teaching is backward. The American Association of School Librarians Information Literacy Standards present a change from the old model, in which the student gets information at the library. The analogy is that toward picking up a package--whether the information is packaged as print, nonprint, or electronic--to be opened later to be put to use. The new information literacy model is one in which the school library is a learning lab for thinking, with the tools for that thinking process so varied and the processes so intermingled with real-life situational contexts that the students cannot stick the printout in their notebook and carry it off to be read later (Sheingold, 1987).

Dewey's emphasis on experience did not mean that every random learning activity that could be devised constituted a valid experience. He listed conditions for projects. First, they must induce student interest, which, he noted, was more than temporary excitement. Projects must be worthwhile, more than just a fun activity, and they should lead into unknown areas. Finally, they must involve enough time so that the thinking process has time to unfold (Dewey, 1933).

Dewey stressed the need for method and devoted an entire chapter in How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process (1933) to the control of data. Without method, the student will grasp for the first fact, without evaluating the true use of that fact. As Dewey succinctly noted, "Things and their qualities are retailed and detailed without reference to a more general character of what they stand for and mean" (p. 185). The search for data must be guided by hypothesis and the use of thinking.

But what constitutes thinking? Dewey (1933) noted that three attitudes are necessary before thinking begins: open-mindedness, whole-heartedness (involving not just listening or watching but also the student's whole interest), and responsibility (intellectual responsibility goes hand-in-hand with belief). Dewey further noted, "Active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends constitutes reflective thought" (p. 9). The process of observation and thinking go on simultaneously; new hypotheses are raised; and fact, once thought to be relevant, may be discarded as irrelevant in light of new data and new hypotheses.

Standard 4: The student who is an independent learner is information literate and pursues information related to personal interests.

Standard 5: The student who is an independent learner is information literate and appreciates literature and other creative expressions of information.

Standard 6: The student who is an independent learner is information literate and strives for excellence in information seeking and knowledge generation. (American Association of School Librarians & Association for Educational Communication and Technology, 1998, pp. 5-7)

In this category of standards, information literacy becomes personal. Students are encouraged to relate information to personal needs, to appreciate literature, and to strive for the highest level of information-seeking and knowledge-generating behavior. Dewey would agree with this category. His writings are consistent with the conclusion that the beginning of thinking arises as a personal need (Dewey, 1934).

Thinking is more than just the ability to identify and connect two facts. Identification simply creates a moment disconnected from purpose. Recognition requires that we either remember in the context of memory Or intend to use the item in some process in which we are currently occupied. The difference between learning and mere recitation is the insertion of self-interest. Interest, as Dewey (1944) defined it, is "the engrossment of self in an object" (p. 126). Emotion, instead of preventing the thinking process, gives impetus to the problematic situation that keeps the thinking process alive (Holder, 1995). As Dewey (1944) noted, "Thinking, in other words, is the intentional endeavor to discover specific connections between something that we do and the consequences that result, so that the two become continuous" (p. 145). True learning comes as meaning connects certain actions with responses that initiate other actions.

The independent learning category of standards does not mean that the learning is devoid of interaction with others--quite the contrary. Dewey saw that interaction is necessary to maintain context. He noted that what individuals think about facts changes when they form associations. Facts are now viewed for the effect that they may have on others, which Dewey noted in the well-known The Public and Its Problems (1954). This book made it clear that collective groups are still composed of individuals. This collection of individuals, arriving at learning experiences and contexts of knowledge, must be present in the learning experience.

Traditional library research, however, does not start with a problem. The U.S. state or country report in which each student or group is assigned a state or a country to study does not allow for the formation of the problem statement. "Arkansas" is not a problem. It is a category with subcategories such as climate, crops, and cities. The webbing and graphic organizers, hailed as helping students to organize research, may actually worsen the situation by delineating the subcategories with no problem attached. Research in this fashion is linear--research has certain steps, and when the steps are completed, the problem has been solved. Even the current projects, although artfully and creatively arranged, are still mere "knowledge-telling" (Sheingold, 1987, p. 81).

A different way of studying these topics allows the same issues to be studied but from a deeper perspective. What if the average temperature rose 10 degrees? What effect would that have on the way that people lived and worked in particular states or countries? To solve that problem, students would still have to research the current facts, but they would also have to think about what those facts mean and whether they would still hold true if abrupt climate change happened.

The three elements of inquiry--motivation by self-interest in a problem, the use of question formulation arising from the problem, and the management of inquiry--have been lost.

Standard 7: The student who contributes positively to the learning community and to society is information literate and recognizes the importance of information to a democratic society.

Standard 8: The student who contributes positively to the learning community and to society is information literate and practices ethical behavior in regard to information and information technology.

Standard 9: The student who contributes positively to the learning community and to society is information literate and participates effectively in groups to pursue and generate information. (American Association of School Librarians & Association for Educational Communication and Technology, 1998, pp. 7-9)

It is this group of standards that is perhaps closest to Dewey's central philosophy. Information literacy affects not only individual lives but also the collective community. In Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (1944), Dewey noted that static facts "are to a large extent the cultural product of societies that assumed the future would be much like the past, and yet [they are] used as educational food in a society where change is the rule, not the exception" (p. 61).

These standards are in keeping with Dewey's commitment to lifelong learning: "The important thing for education is the exercise or practice of the faculties of the mind till they become thoroughly established habitudes" (Dewey, 1944, p. 35). But underlying this commitment to lifelong learning is the basic assumption for inquiry learning, that there should be no information inequities.

To formulate new assumptions as societal goals, a community of individuals must have access to the endlessly moving information. Dewey would point out that this process has no end, that the stimulus in a game is not the individual action but rather the continuation of the game itself--in other words, the "situation" (Westbrook, 1991, p. 100).

In many of Dewey's writings, he stressed that the context of the learning environment cannot be removed from the environment. The context of information literacy skills is curriculum-based inquiry, not a preparation for future learning but a learning process for students' daily lives. This context is identified and illustrated by John Dewey's writings. As Ann Carlson (1990) discussed, the "basic question of librarianship is to find a theory to support information literacy" (p. 116). John Dewey, with his emphasis on the situational development of thinking and knowing, is that theoretical base.

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Feature articles in TL are blind refereed by members of the advisory board. This article was submitted March 2006 and accepted April 2006.

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By Gail K. Dickinson

Gail K. Dickinson is an associate professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She can be reached at gdickins@odu.edu.