Abstracts - Earli

K 1131 August 2007 08:30 - 10:30Room: 0.87 MarxSymposiumSolving information-based problems: Searching, selecting andevaluating informationChair: Iwan Wopereis, Open University of the Netherlands, NetherlandsOrganiser: Saskia Brand-Gruwel, Open University of the Netherlands, NetherlandsDiscussant: Jean Francois Rouet, University of Poitiers, FrancePresently, we are living in an information society. It is expected that people in all kinds ofsituations identify information needs, locate appropriate information sources, extract and organizerelevant information from each source, and synthesize retrieved information. It is often assumedthat students become information literate and master the complex cognitive skill of informationproblem solving all by themselves. However, research reveals that without adequate support moststudents are unable to locate information efficiently and effectively. The papers in this symposiumrevolve different aspect and problems students have during this process of information problemsolving. Furthermore, instructional support to foster students’ ability to search and select neededinformation will be discussed. The first paper of Brand-Gruwel and Wopereis presents a modeldescribing the skills involved when solving information-based problems while searching forinformation on the WWW. The second paper of Kienhues, Bromme and Stadtler addresses howpeople, while searching for medical information on the WWW, integrate conflicting evidence intoa viable framework of personal understanding and decision-making. It cannot be taken for grantedthat people who deal with conflicting evidence exercise adequate epistemological reasoningspontaneously, or that they engage in epistemological reasoning at all. The third paper presentedby Groen will focus on providing people support to locate task-objective relevant information andwill empirically test a data-driven psychological model of localising relevant information inunstructured data sets. Finally the paper of Walraven, Brand-Gruwel and Boshuizen will focus onhow students and teachers of third year pre-university classes search, judge and select informationon the WWW. Special attention is given to the criteria students and teachers use to judge andselect information. Results of these research projects is valuable input for designing instructionalsupport to fostering students’ ability to select and judge information and sources and becomeexpert information problem solvers.Information Problem Solving while using Internet for searching information: a descriptive modelSaskia Brand-Gruwel, Open University of the Netherlands, NetherlandsIwan Wopereis, Open University of the Netherlands, NetherlandsIn contemporary education emphasis is on meaningful learning, knowledge construction and selfdirectedlearning. To stimulate students to construct knowledge in a meaningful way, they getlearning tasks and assignments that require them to identify information needs, locate informationsources, extract and organize information from each source, and synthesize information from avariety of sources. This set of activities is frequently defined as Information problem solving (IPS)(Eisenberg & Berkowitz, 1990; Brand-Gruwel, Wopereis & Vermetten, 2005). This paper presentsa descriptive model depicting the process of information problem solving (IPS) when students usethe Internet for searching information (IPS-I-model). In two studies higher education students– 607 –