Literacy Information

An article (Fisher et al., 2015) reports on a very interesting series of experiments, which explored the question of whether people feel that they have become more knowledgeable just through the act of searching. The answer is basically "yes", even when people don't find anything from the search.
"Searching for answers online leads to an illusion such that externally accessible information is conflated with knowledge “in the head” (Experiment 1a and b). This holds true even when controlling for time, content, and search autonomy during the task (Experiment 1c). Furthermore, participants who used the Internet to access explanations expected to have increased brain activity, corresponding to higher quality explanations, while answering unrelated questions (Experiment 2a). This effect is not driven by a misinterpretation of the dependent measure (Experiment 2b) or general overconfidence (Experiment 3) and is driven by querying Internet search engines (Experiment 4a-c)."

Fisher, M., Goddu, M., & Keil, F. (2015). Searching for explanations: how the Internet inflates estimates of internal knowledge. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000070 (advanced online publication) There is a self-archived copy here: http://campuspress.yale.edu/matthewfisher/files/2015/03/pdf-16ueczx.pdf

I discovered this via: Novella, S. (2015, April 6). The Google University Effect. Neurologica blog. http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-google-university-effect/ which in turn I discovered through a discussion post by Peter Tagtmeyer.
Photo by Sheila webber: cherry blossom, April 2015

The latest issue of Information Research has been published (vol. 20 no. 1, 2015). This issue celebrates 20 years of this open access journal, and the founder and editor, Tom Wilson, comments on its achievements in his editorial.
The issue is at http://www.informationr.net/ir/20-1/infres201.html and includes the following:
Hilary Yerbury: Information practices of young activists in Rwanda
Alisa Howlett and Zaana Howard: Exploring the use of evidence in practice by Australian special librarians
Sook Lim and Nick Steffel: Influence of user ratings, expert ratings and purposes of information use on the credibility judgments of college students
Christine Yates and Helen Partridge: Citizens and social media in times of natural disaster: exploring information experience
Reijo Savolainen: Expressing emotions in information sharing: a study of online discussion about immigration

It also has a supplement at http://www.informationr.net/ir/20-1/isic2/isic2.html with the second part of the proceedings from the 2014 Information Seeking in Context (ISIC) conference. These include
Anindita Paul: Use of information and communication technologies in the everyday lives of Indian women: a normative behaviour perspective.
Heidi Enwald, Noora Hirvonen, Raija Korpelainen and Maija-Leena Huotari: Young men´s perceptions of fear appeal versus neutral health messages – associations with everyday health information literacy, education, and health.
Kyung-Sun Kim and Sei-Ching Joanna Sin: Use of social media in different contexts of information seeking: effects of sex and problem-solving style
Noora Hirvonen, Stefan Ek, Raimo Niemelä, Raija Korpelainen and Maija-Leena Huotari: Socio-demographic characteristics associated with everyday health information literacy of young men.
Ola Pilerot: Information sharing in the field of design research.
Reijo Savolainen: Approaching the affective factors of information seeking: the viewpoint of the information search process model
Shelagh K Genuis: 'The transfer of information through word of mouth is powerful': interpersonal information interactions and personal health management
Sophie Rutter, Nigel Ford and Paul Clough: How do children reformulate their search queries?
Terryl Asla and Kirsty Williamson: Unexplored territory: information behaviour in the Fourth Age
Theresa Anderson and Ina Fourie: Collaborative auto-ethnography as a way of seeing the experience of caregiving as an information practice.
Tom Rosman, Anne-Kathrin Mayer and Günter Krampen: Intelligence, academic self-concept, and information literacy: the role of adequate perceptions of academic ability in the acquisition of knowledge about information searching.
Yan Zhang and Yalin Sun: Users’ link sharing in an online health community.
Stan Karanasios, Carmine Sellitto and Stephen Burgess: Mobile devices and information patterns amongst tourists.
Valerie Nesset: Using empirical data to refine a model for information literacy instruction for elementary school students.
Photo by Sheila Webber: daffodils, Sheffield, March 2015

For those of you interested in systematic review: a recent article:
Methley, A. et al. (2014) PICO, PICOS and SPIDER: a comparison study of specificity and sensitivity in three search tools for qualitative systematic reviews. BMC Health Services Research, 14:579. doi:10.1186/s12913-014-0579-0 There's an open access version at http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/14/579/abstract
Photo by Sheila Webber: baby carrots, Blackheath market, January 2015

News article highlighting the fact that younger people aren't necessarily good at searching. This was following a talk by Google's Dan Rusell given at Glasgow University. I assume the content was similar to what he said at an earlier talk.
Denholm, A. (2014, 23 October) Great internet age divide is a myth. Herald. http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/education/great-internet-age-divide-is-a-myth.25672713
Photo by Sheila Webber: leaf on the step, November 2014