Questionnaire 3 (05 October 2011)

My thoughts and feelings about my topic

An examination of the various models for information literacy and inquiry-based learning led me to believe that ‘learning to learn’ is the nexus between information literacy and inquiry-based learning. Essential to ‘learning to learn’ is the ability to reflect upon what is already known and what needs to be known (the ability to formulate questions or identify problems for investigation) and to seek solutions and reflect on the appropriateness of those solutions.

Solutions usually come in the form of information which is available from many sources and takes many forms. Sources can be people, places or things. I asked the  Prep children’s When you want to know something, where can you get information? Their responses to the question could be best categorised as people, places or things. Forms include our personal experiences (our own senses and emotions), the personal experiences of others (conversations with people through face-to-face dialogue or transactional texts like letters, postcards, email, blogs, discussion boards, debates, narrative and non-narrative texts in text, still and moving images and sound).

Some forms and sources of information are more easily accessed than others. For children, the easiest sources of information to access are their parents and teachers. They are aware of other sources such as books and computers, but need help to access them.

Some forms and sources of information are more difficult to access than others. Storage of information for easy retrieval requires the development of systems. People often need to be taught how to access these systems. At a simple level, a book is an information storage device. The Prep children often said that reading was difficult for them. At a complex level, libraries and the Internet are storage systems for information. Teachers need to model information retrieval from these systems, and children need opportunties to practice information retrieval processes.

To better understand how to retrieve and interpret information effectively, children also need to practice the processes of recording and communicating information.

Critical reflection on information is also important. This involves understanding the relationships amongst the forms of information that affect its accuracy, currency, credibility and appropriateness to the intended purpose. For example, a fact presented in an encyclopedia might be seen as more accurate than a similar fact presented on a web page. However, in some cases, like population of a city or country, the respective dates of publication of the fact might be a more effective guide to the reliablity of the information than the source.

The type of source will also influence the degree of specificity of information. I found adequate support for inquiry based learning in the research literature. It seemed obvious that inquiry-based learning comes in many forms and that students are generally capable of effective and efficient open inquiry after being guided through processes by teachers. However there was scant advice on day-to-day practice to demonstrate how teachers support learning in the preparatory year. I thought there might be more specific advice in  professional journals. While there was a lot of praise for inquiry-based learning and play-based learning, once more there was little information about how to implement such an approach.

I then looked to models of information literacy, thinking skills and philosophical thinking. While these provided steps and suggested resources, it was still hard to get a clear picture of information literacy and inquiry-based learning in Prep. More specific advice was provided by curriculum documentation, particularly scope and sequence documents and case studies.

Examining the curriculum documentation for evidence of or support for information literacy and inquiry based learning made me wonder which aspects of inquiry-based learning and information literacy are curriculum and what is pedagogy?

Some approaches such as play-based learning and philosophy for/with children can complement but not replace inquiry-based learning. These approaches provide teachers with opportunties to scaffold learning within an inquiry-based approach. I would like to explore the development of metacognition and meta-language, and the use of philosophical thinking to develop critical thinking and reflection.

My interest level for this topic

Not at all ☐      not much ☐    quite a bit ☐    a great deal R

Guilty, like many primary school teachers, of underestimating what young children can do. Now that I have a better appreciation of the principles underpinning early childhood education, I am very interested in learning more about how to scaffolded learning appropriately. I would also like to learn more about the connection between metacognition and inquiry learning. If we are learners from the day we are born, then children are already accomplished learners by the time they get to school. So, what is it about learning that we need young children to learn? Is it to identify and articulate their own learning needs and to communicate what they have learnt effectively? Is this their learning need or merely the accountability requirements of an education system?

My knowledge level about this topic

Nothing ☐        not much ☐    quite a bit R    a great deal ☐

I would like to be able to say that I know a great deal about the topic. But the more I learned, the more I was aware of further areas for exploration. I feel as if I am still

Things I find easy when researching

I’m pleased to be able to say that I have a much better understanding of advanced searches in a range of academic databases. I find it much easier to identify keywords and synonyms and related topics for searches. I am becoming more practiced at using search histories to track my searches in a methodical way, selecting relevant sources from those returned by searches, and organising the information I gather so that it is easy to retrieve and reference.  Though I do find it easy to get side tracked by identifying new areas for exploration.

Things I find difficult when researching

Recording videos without mistakes – I really don’t like doing these.

Collecting data from preparatory year students.

A Wiki'd be Wicked

Preparing blog entries has made me examine my learning style more closely.

I see learning as more than a process or a product. It is a natural state of being that continues, consciously or unconsciously, throughout our lifetimes. Knowledge is the result of the learning state when connections are made about the thoughts and feelings stimulated by multi-sensory input from our interactions with people, places, things and other states of being.

The metaphors for learning that most closely resembles my approach to learning in this unit is that of a fractalled jigsaw, where each piece of the jigsaw is in turn constructed from pieces of its own.

Blog’s are essentially linear sets of records. At first I thought that as a reflective device, a blog might represent a flow of consciousness, tracking learning as we stumble upon gems of wisdom that resonate with our prior experiences to create new impressions or beliefs. However as I investigated the information learning activity context, I found myself exploring an eclectic mix of topics that were difficult to track in a linear fashion. They were more like circles within circles or spirals within spirals than links in a chain. Although blog entries can be hyperlinked to illustrate relationships amongst topics, thinking in terms of blog entries seemed restrictive. The difficulty I faced in preparing items for my blog was that I was often researching a number of topics simultaneously and sources found to update my understanding in one area, might also be relevant to my understanding in another area.

So I found the linear nature of blogging less suited to recording my learning journey than a wiki might have been. A set of well-named and tagged wiki entries might afford a better format to record, track and represent my investigation of topics.

I did learn that a meaningful title for blog entries was necessary for relocating particular topics if I wanted to update them.

This diagram represents what I recall of the ideas I have explored, and how they might be related.

 

By examining this diagram, I am reminded of the areas of learning that I restricted by choosing to work with a Prep class.

One of the areas that I would like to have explored further is multimodal texts. Multimedia, hypertext and multimodal texts with Web 2.0 capabilities draw readers into the text in ways that are not possible in printed texts (James 1999 in Unsworth, 2001). The nature of web-based texts, requires students to develop the ability to read the links and frames of web pages.

Links are gateways or access points to further information and they also imply associations amongst ideas and beliefs. Therefore links can influence how people think about a subject (Burbules 1997: 113 in Unsworth, 2001, p.12). For example, links from a web page of a political organisation to web pages related to a specific religion could be interpretted as a link between the two organisations. Similarly if a human rights web page is linked to pro-life web pages, the links implies the belief that abortion violates human rights. (Unsworth, 2001, p.12) Menu links can also be interpretted. Menu items placed at the top or left-hand side of the web page, or in the top level of multi-level menus might be seen as more important than those placed at the bottom of the page or in lower level menus. For example, on an organisation’s website, those departments or activities that have a top level menu item might feel more valued than those who don’t.

Frames are used to position two or more texts or images within one window. This affords web page designers potential to privilege or associate information by screen position (Moore 1999 in Unsworth, 2001). Text placed beside eye-catching illustrations is likely to get more attention. Information about a new anti-aging face cream placed beside images of beautiful young women will imply that the cream will achieve those results.

Interpretting the meta-knowledge of digital devices requires an understanding of how hyperlinks and frames are achieved. Ultimately, ‘the more one is aware of how this is done, the more one can be aware that it was done and that it could have been done otherwise’ (Burbules 1997, p. 119, in Unsworth, 2001).

REFERENCES

Unsworth, L. (2001). Teaching multiliteracies across the curriculum: Changing contexts of text and image in classroom practice. Buckingham, Philadelphia. Open University Press. Retrieved September 25, 2011, from http://ftp.mcgraw-hill.co.uk/openup/chapters/0335206042.pdf

Searching, sifting and sorting

The children’s responses to the first questionnaire had made me curious about the relationships amongst inquiry-based learning, information literacy and metacognition.

TAYLOR & FRANCIS ONLINE

I didn’t have very much experience with Taylor & Francis Online, so I  decided to use it to search for articles about the metacognitive skills and use of meta-language by young children.

I found this database’s advanced search form to be more restrictive than that of EBSCOHost. As you can see from the screen shot below, it uses the Boolean operators to link searches of particular fields, rather than allowing you to select a field and a Boolean operator for each search term.

Francis & Taylor Online has a number of filter options inclulding limiting a search:

·         to items to which you have full access

·         by publication type

·         by publication date

·         by subject area.

SEARCHING

I began by searching for “metacognition AND young children” in the Article/Chapter Title field and this returned one item.

Self-regulation and metacognition in young children's self-initiated play and Reflective Dialogue

Sue Robson

Journal: International Journal of Early Years EducationVolume 18, Issue 3, September 2010, pages 227-241

Then broadened the search by using the same search term in the Keywords field. This returned 2 items, the one by Robson and:

A Phenomenological Analysis of the Metamemory of Five Six-year-old Children

Shirley Larkin

Journal: Qualitative Research in PsychologyVolume 4, Issue 4, December 2007, pages 281-293.

To further broaden the search, I used the same search term in the Full Text field.

This returned 1205 results.

I then filtered the results for by publication date and limited the results to items to which I had full access.

There were still 377 results. I scanned through them quickly. I found one interesting item.

Thinking About Thinking: Developing Metacognition in Children

Robert Fisher Early Child Development and Care
Vol. 141, Iss. 1, 2006

So I went back to the advanced search form to filter the search results by selecting subject areas and using the Boolean operator NOT to elliminate articles related to other age groups and special needs groups.

This resulted in two items that were different to the two that I had already found. So I downloaded these citations as well. 

Results

1. Exploring Young Children's Conceptions About ThinkingAngela K. Salmon, Teresa Lucas Journal of Research in Childhood Education
   Vol. 25, Iss. 4, 2011
   
2. Dialogic teaching: developing thinking and metacognition through philosophical discussionRobert Fisher Early Child Development and Care
   Vol. 177, Iss. 6-7, 2007

SIFTING

When choosing articles I look first at currency, then relevance and authority.

Currency

To determine whether an article is going to be useful, I look first at its currency. The easiest way to do this is by limiting the search to a span of years in the publication date field of an advanced search. I prefer to use articles that are 5-10 years old. However, when there is limited material available on a topic I also use older articles, particularly if they are cited by the most recent material available.

Relevance

To determine relevance,  first I scan the list of titles in the search result. This also helps me to identify trends in the search results that will suggest words for expanding the search (e.g. OR thinking) and limiting the search in a Boolean search (e.g. NOT adolescent, NOT old age).

Next I read the abstracts of the most likely sources. It they appear to be related to the topic, I download the item and read the introductions and conclusions. For this unit, I tried to determine whether the research was underpinned by or related to constructivist or connectivist learning theory.

In the search for articles about metacognition in young children I also included the source title “Early Child Development and Care” in the advanced search “Publication Name” field, but that only resulted in the one item (Fisher, 2006) that I had already found in the broader search. So I looked at the publications of some of the early search results. Journal of Research in Childhood

Authority

One way to determine the authority of an article is to see if it is peer reviewed. Most academic database advanced search mechanisms allow the searcher to restrict their searches to ‘peer reviewed’. Another indicator of reliability can be how often the source is cited in other works. Google Scholar offers this type of data.

Once I have downloaded an item, I look at the reference list to determine the extent of its literature scan and I read the description of the research method to determine whether the research findings appear valid or might have wider applicability.

SORTING

When I am researching a topic, I like to keep a track of my searches by saving the search results in well named directories that indicate the search engine and date. I save a list of the search terms and results in the same directory as the pdf files.

At the start of the searching process I also tried to keep a log of my searches in spreadsheet form, but found that I would get carried away with searching and forget to enter the information into the log.

Searching always takes much longer than I expect it to.

Seeking Information about Information Literacy in Early Childhood

A Quick Google Search

When I had a few moment to spare I thought I would begin my search for articles about information literacy in early childhood with a quick Google Search using the phrase “information literacy in early childhood education”. This returned over 4000000 results. When I scanned down the titles of the first 10 items I realised that the search had return results that included either ‘information literacy’ or ‘early childhood education’ and that the most likely results were at the top. So of the millions, only two appear directly relevant to my project. Both were conference papers.

Information Literacy for Students in Early Childhood by Ayshe Talay-Ongan, Trish Edmonds and Maree Gosper from Macquarie University, Australia

Information Literacy - Implications for Early Childhood Teaching by Donna Berthelsen, Gail Halliwell, Judith Peacock, Jess Burke and Irene Ryan from Queensland University of Technology

I thought that conference papers might afford some practical insights.

The first paper, by Berthelsen, Halliwell, Peacock, Burke & Ryan, 2000, begins with a quite limited definition of information literacy. “Information literacy encompasses both technological skills and skills to locate, evaluate, and use information from a range of sources.”  They state that there is an increasing expectation that children will begin developing information literacy skills as soon as they enter formal school programs, and that this early childhood ‘technoliteracy’ (Synder, 2000 in Berthelsen, et al., 2000) is a “largely uncharted territory” (Berthelsen, et al., 2000). They cite Lankshear, Snyder & Green (2000) in elaborating on a socio-cultural view of technoliteracy that comprises operational, cultural and critical dimensions (Berthelsen, et al., 2000). They deduce that greater attention needs to be paid to understanding the “complex connections between literacy, technology and learning” in the education of young children (Berthelsen, Halliwell, Peacock, Burke & Ryan, 2000). However the rest of the paper is devoted to research on the information literacy competencies and attitudes of pre-service early childhood teachers.

Similarly, Talay-Ongan, Edmonds & Gosper’s (2001) conference paper focussed on information literacy training offered by the Macquarie University’s library for students of the Institute of Early Childhood (IEC). So it had little relevance to my topic.

I assumed from my poor result that there might be little research in the area, or that I needed to use alternate search terms and advanced searches.

Science Direct Expert Search

Next I tried a basic Boolean search in the Expert Search section of Science Direct.

I used the Boolean search query “early childhood” AND “information literacy”.

This resulted in 28 items. I then used the filter to exclude book items and items related to encyclopedia entries, and unrelated topics.

By scanning down the titles, I identified the two most likely articles to meet my project needs. These were both research articles published in 2011.

Using collaborative teaching and inquiry project-based learning to help primary school students develop information literacy and information skills. Library & Information Science Research, Volume 33, Issue 2, April 2011, Pages 132-143. Samuel Kai Wah Chu, S.K. Tse, Ken Chow.

Collaborative inquiry project-based learning: Effects on reading ability and interests  Original Research Article. Library & Information Science Research, Volume 33, Issue 3, July 2011, Pages 236-243. Samuel Kai Wah Chu, Shek Kam Tse, Elizabeth Ka Yee Loh, Ken Chow

After reading the abstracts in the item previews, I found that the articles were about a study done with Year 4 primary school children.

  

Responding to draft context feedback

Receiving and providing feedback on context drafts was a valuable experience, and would have been even more so if I had more time to put into it.

Two aspects that I found most valuable were advice about structure and advice about the relevance of a reference to Finland’s students’ performance on international standardised assessment.

1.      Structure

Feedback

Re-read your topic sentences. Are they identifying the main idea that will be developed within your paragraph? You often put the author not the topic at the foreground of your sentence. Look at the examples in the assessment guidelines.

Read your topic sentences in isolation. Do they flow naturally? I think some of your paragraphs could be reordered to make your report flow better.

Reviewing topic sentences of the Context first draft

Reviewing the topic sentences to re-structure the context was an excellent idea.

Firstly, I looked at the topic sentences in isolation. I read them as if they were a paragraph in their own right to see if they read logically. Then I examined them to see whether they portrayed my main ideas. Finally I looked at whether the topic sentences were general statements that were backed up by more specific information.

I decided that the context needed restructuring to make the main ideas more clear and to sequence the information. Some of the topic sentences were too specific, and needed to be reworded as general statements.

Topic sentences of the Context revised draft

After receiving feedback on my revised context, I re-examined the topic sentences to see whether the concepts of inquiry learning and information literacy developed as themes throughout the context statement, and led to an understanding of the inforation-learning nexus. This helped me to understand that too little emphasis was placed on the essence of inquiry approaches (questioning) and that I had not clearly conveyed what I understood to be the information-learning nexus. The structure of my context statement needed reworking to highlight the key concepts of information literacy and inquiry-based learning, and to clarify the information-learning nexus.

1.      Seeking further evidence

Finland's students continue to perform well on the triennial Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, examinations in reading, science and maths (Nelson, 2010). Their success has been partly attributed to the pedagogical practices of their strong pre-primary education program. (Nelson, 2010; Lerkkanen, 2007). The focus of pre-primary education in Finland is on ' learning how to learn' rather than on subject area content (Jimenez, 2009 in Nelson, 2010). Finnish preschools use child-initiated and play-related, small-group activities to promote active learning (Lerkkanen, 2007).

Feedback

Your lead sentence is very long and could be more succinct. For example, Students from Finland continue to outperform other countries on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment. Even that is still really long!

Also is the purpose of inquiry based learning to improve standardized test scores or is it to develop a deeper understanding. I know these don't necessarily need to be mutually exclusive but using a standardized test to validate inquiry-based learning is floored [sic].

I wasn’t sure that I was actually trying to validate inquiry-based learning on the basis of national performance on standardised tests, nor did I agree that to do so would be flawed. I was trying to link sound educational pedagogy with a relatively objective measure of consistent academic success. I was trying to identify a possible link between the Finnish pre-primary education focus on learning to learn (as an important building block for both information literacy and inquiry-based learning) and the information literacy and problem solving demands of the PISA assessment items.

So I re-examined my sources of information, firstly to assess their credibility and secondly to identify evidence to support my argument.

Lerkkanen,  M.K. (2007). The Beginning Phases of Reading Literacy Instruction in Finland. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä. Retrieved August 29, 2011, from cass.org/downloads/41/41_14_The%20Beginning%20Phases%20of%20Reading%20Literacy.pdf

Nelson, B.J. (2010). Finland Education and Pisa: A Review of Literature. Michigan: Northern Michigan University. Retrieved August 29, 2011, from webb.nmu.edu

Sahlberg, P.  (2006). "Education Reform for Raising Economic Competitiveness". Journal of Educational Change(1389-2843), 7(4), 259. Retrieved September 10, 2011, from http://www.pasisahlberg.com/downloads/Education%20reform%20for%20economic%20competitiveness%20JEC.pdf

All three sources are relatively current, published in the past 5 years. The credibility of the sources was based on their origins. The first two sources were published by universities and the third was published in an educational journal. Lerkkanen’s report on the literacy instruction was available from the Western Education and Library Board that provides curriculum advice and support to schools in Northern Ireland. Nelson’s literature review was published as part of the requirements for a Master of Arts in Education at Northern Michigan University. Sahlberg’s paper is available from his blog. Sahlberg is an educator and researcher. He is also director of CIMO which is an independent agency under the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture that promote international cooperation and mobility by implementing exchange, trainee and scholarship programmes. All three articles were well written and extensively referenced.

In revising the paragraph, I shortened the topic sentence. I used the topic sentence to foreground the concept of ‘learning to learn’ by making it the rheme of the sentence. I added information about the nature of the PISA assessment items to emphasise the need to solve real world problems rather than regurgitate subject content.

‘Learning how to learn’ rather than subject area content is the focus of pre-primary education in Finland (Jimenez, 2009 in Nelson, 2010). The success of Finnish students in international examinations — that evaluate how well students use knowledge and skills to solve real world problems rather than students’ specific knowledge of subject area content (Sahlberg, 2006) — has been partly attributed to the pedagogy of their strong pre-primary education (Nelson, 2010; Lerkkanen, 2007). Finnish preschools use child-initiated and play-related, small-group activities to promote active learning (Lerkkanen, 2007), which occurs when children explore things that interest them and construct their understandings by direct, immediate and thoughtful experiences of “objects, people, ideas, and events” (Hohmann & Weikart,1995, pp. 16 & 36). The pedogogical underpinnings of the Early Years Curriculum Guidelines are consistent with those of the Finnish pre-primary curriculum.

REFERENCES

Education Queensland. (2009). Smart Classrooms: ICT Student Expectations. Brisbane: Queensland Government. Retrieved August 29, 2011, from education.qld.gov.au/smartclassrooms/pdf/student-ict-expectations.pdf

Heider, K. L. (2009). Information Literacy: The Missing Link in Early Childhood Education. Early Childhood Education Journal, 36(6), 513-518. Retrieved August 6, 2011, from EBSCOhost.

Hohmann, M. & Weikart, D.P. (1995). Educating Young Children: Active Learning Practices for Preschool and Child Care Programs. Educating Young Children, A Curriculum Guide. pp. 13–41. High/Scope Press. Ypsilanti, Michigan, USA. Retrieved September 6, 2011, from www.ecdgroup.com/download/gh1eycxi.pdf

Kapitzke, C. (2003). Information literacy: a review and poststructural critique. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 26(1),  53–66. Retrieved September 4, 2011, from QUT ePrints http://eprints.qut.edu.au/8867/

Kinder, D. (2004). Information Literacy: A Key to Success in the 21st Century.The Greet Exchange, Spring 2004. Ryerson University. Retrieved September 3, 2011, from http://www.ryerson.ca/lt/publications/GREETSpr04V03Apr5.pdf

Kuhltau, C.C., Maniotes, L.K. & Caspari, A.K. (2007). Guiding Inquiry: Learning in the 21^st Century. Westport: Libraries Unlimited.

Lerkkanen,  M.K. (2007). The Beginning Phases of Reading Literacy Instruction in Finland. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä. Retrieved August 29, 2011, from cass.org/downloads/41/41_14_The%20Beginning%20Phases%20of%20Reading%20Literacy.pdf

Lonka, K., Hakkarainen, K. & Sintonen, M. (2000). Progressive Inquiry Learning for Children — Experiences, Possibilities, Limitations. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 8(1), 7–23. Retrieved September 4, 2011, from Taylor and Francis Online. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13502930085208461

Nelson, B.J. (2010). Finland Education and Pisa: A Review of Literature. Michigan: Northern Michigan University. Retrieved August 29, 2011, from webb.nmu.edu

Owens, R.F., Hester, J.L. & Teale, W.H. (2002). Where Do You Want to Go Today? Inquiry-Based Learning and Technology Integration. The Reading Teacher. 55(7), Owning Technology (April, 2002), 616-625. Retrieved September 10, 2011, from http://www.jstor.org/pss/20205108

Queensland Studies Authority. (2006). Phase Descriptors: Examples of Behaviours in the 4 Phases of Learning. Brisbane: Queensland Government. Retrieved August 29, 2011, from  http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/981.html

Queensland Studies Authority. (2007). Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) Cross-curriculum priority by the end of Year 3. Brisbane: Queensland Government. Retrieved August 29, 2011, from  http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/7300.html

Queensland Studies Authority. (2009). Early Years Curriculum Guidelines. Brisbane: Queensland Government. Retrieved August 29, 2011, from  http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/981.html

Robinson, L. (2008). Information Literacy and Early Learners. Library Media Connection, 27(2), 10–11. Retrieved September 5, 2011, from EBSCOhost.

Sahlberg, P.  (2006). "Education Reform for Raising Economic Competitiveness". Journal of Educational Change(1389-2843), 7(4), 259. Retrieved September 10, 2011, from http://www.pasisahlberg.com/downloads/Education%20reform%20for%20economic%20competitiveness%20JEC.pdf

Spink, Amanda H. and Danby, Susan J. and Mallan, Kerry M. and Butler, Carly. (2010). Exploring Young Children's Web Searching and Technoliteracy. Journal of Documentation, 66(2), 191–206. Retrieved August 6, 2011, from QUT eprints http://eprints.qut.edu.au/31386/

Stephen, C. and Plowman, L. (2008). Enhancing Learning with Information and Communication Technologies in Pre-school. Early Child Development and Care, 178(6), 637–654 Retrieved August 28, 2011, from EBSCO Host http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430600869571

Searching other databases

I ran searches in a range of databases that were recommended for early childhood education topics, including:
·    A+Education
·    ERIC
·     MAS Ultra: School Edition
·     Primary Search
·     Professional Development Collection
·     PsycINFO
·    ProQuest Education Journals
·    The Learning Federation (TLF) Content Repository

EBSCOhost Searches

One of the advantages of EBSCOhost is that several databases can be searched simultaneously. The ones suggested for Early Childhood Education were ERIC, MAS Ultra: School Edition, Primary Search, Professional Development Collection; and PsycINFO.  

Search results

The following table compares the results of searches in Informit, using EBSCOhost to search ERIC and then to simultaneously search ERIC; MAS Ultra: School Edition; Primary Search; Professional Development Collection; and PsycINFO. Note that the single quotation marks in Informit searches are replaced by double quotation marks in EBSCO Host searches. Boolean operators AND and OR were used to make the searches more specific. NOT was used to limit the search results to those specific to the context. The choice of search field was also used to narrow or broaden the search, depending up the number of results returned.

A limited number of the items returned were relevant to this project. Some of the results returned were not relevant to this topic because they were:

·   studies with pre-service preschool or early childhood teachers rather than studies related to working witH children

·   studies were specific to students with disabilities

·   studies that were specific to science or mathematics rather than language learning, SOSE and HPE

·   the use of the word ‘inquiry’ related to the research project rather than early childhood pedagogy

·   the items related to ‘literacy’ rather than ‘information literacy’

·   not available to QUT.

The more searching and reading that I did, the more related terms I found. After a while, it became easier to organise the search terms in a table. Further search terms identified by scanning subjects, abstracts and the contents of articles found by these searches included: philosophical thinking, critical thinking, active learning, play or play-based learning.