Methodology
The students were given surveys from the Student Learning Impact Measure (SLIM) toolkit (Todd, Kuhlthau and Heinstrom, 2005) at three intervals during the research period as suggested. The first survey was completed in Week 1 at the beginning of the ILA, the second completed in Week 3, during the Formation/Focus stage and the final survey completed in during Week 5 at the conclusion of the ILA. Twenty-three of the 28 students completed all three surveys.
For the first two surveys, the students were ambivalent about how to complete Question 1; asking whether they should respond in sentence or note form. Being unfamiliar with administration of this toolkit, I assured the students it would be fine to respond in note form. Todd, Kulhthau and Henistrom (2005) recommend that students be encouraged to write in sentences. With hindsight, I recognise the benefit of this advice. After completion of the teaching and learning period, when I was coding student responses in categories of fact, explanation and conclusion, I realised that responses written as sentences may have provided more accurate data. By the time Survey 3 was to be completed I had become more familiar with test administration and encouraged students to respond in sentence form.
I decided to adapt Survey 3 slightly from that provided in the SLIM toolkit. As I became more familiar with the pedagogy underpinning inquiry learning I became more aware of the relevance of Kuhlthau’s (2004) affective stages (in Kuhlthau et al, 2007, p. 19). For Survey 3, I included a table in which students could indicate and note the progression of their feelings during their inquiry from beginning to conclusion. I was also more aware of the importance of students’ metacognition as an aspect of inquiry learning. I added two further open-ended questions based on the Reflection stage of the Inquiry Framework presented by McKenzie and McKinnon (see questions 9 and 10 below).
Question 8. Please think about some of your feelings during this task and compete the table below. Please write as many feelings as you had. You can use feelings that are not included in the chart.
Question 9. Has your thinking about anything changed since you started this task? Please mention everything you can.
Question 10. What did you learn about yourself as a learner? Please mention everything you can.
Informal interviews, observations and interactions with students also provided information about aspects of the information search process.
References
Kuhlthau, Carol C., Maniotes, Leslie K. & Caspari, Ann K, (2007). Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century. Westport: Libraries Unlimited
McKenzie, K., and McKinnon, M. (2009). Inquiry-based learning: encouraging deep thinking and a passion for learning. Practically Primary, v.14 n.2 p.37-40; June 2009 retrieved from http://search.informit.com.au.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/fullText;dn=177788;res=AEIPT
Todd, R., Kuhlthau, C. & Heinstrom, J. (2005). School Library Impact Measure. A Toolkit for Tracking and Assessing Student Learning Outcomes Of Guided Inquiry Through The School Libray. Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries, Rutgers University, http://cissl.rutgers.edu/images/stories/docs/slimtoolkit.pdf