Source-based writing assignments conducted by groups of students are a common learning task used in information literacy instruction. The fundamental assumption in group assignments is that students' collaboration substantially enhances their learning. The present study focused on the group work strategies adopted by upper secondary school students in source-based writing assignments. Seventeen groups authored Wikipedia or Wikipedia-style articles and were interviewed during and after the assignment. The interviews were analyzed to identify the key activities which the students undertook, the ways the group work was conducted in these activities and how the students justified their choice of group work strategies.Group work strategies were analyzed in six activities: planning, searching, assessing sources, reading, writing and editing. The students used two cooperative strategies: delegation and division of work, and two collaborative strategies: pair and group collaboration. Division of work into independently conducted parts was the most popular group work strategy. Also group collaboration, where students worked together to complete an activity, was commonly applied. Division of work was justified by efficiency in completing the project and by ease of control in the fair division of contributions. The motivation behind collaboration was related to quality issues and shared responsibility. The authors suggest that the present designs of learning tasks lead students to avoid collaboration increasing the risk of low learning outcomes in information literacy instruction.

No abstract

Inquiry-based assignments are commonly used in information literacy (IL) instruction. However, guiding pupils through the inquiry process is challenging as the school's traditional instruction practices are teacher-centered. Yet, there are teachers who continuously develop their personal pedagogies in IL instruction, but we have very little research insight into that. This paper reports on a two-year longitudinal case study based in the classrooms of a lower secondary school teacher. The teacher and her two colleagues were engaged in enhancing their pedagogical practices in IL instruction. The findings based on interviews and classroom observations indicate that the teachers use various types of assignments and instructional activities for IL instruction.

This paper reports the findings of a study on how students' self-efficacy in and attitudes to online research develop in a two-year information literacy intervention in the lower secondary school. The data was collected by a questionnaire administered before, in the middle of, and after the intervention. A repeated measures ANOVA was used to reveal the effect of the intervention. The teaching intervention changed students' behavioral intentions in the evaluation of search results and in source-based writing. No intervention effect was observed in other attitude factors or in self-efficacy beliefs. The authors suggest that selfefficacy and attitudes should be considered as explicit learning goals in pedagogical practices in order to develop them more effectively.

No abstract