Combining SIFT and the Information Needs, Types, and Qualities Approaches: A Framework-Informed Strategy for Information Literacy Instruction

Increasingly, librarians are encouraged to deliver information literacy sessions that go beyond finding and using traditional scholarly sources. They are asked to cover a wider range of the information ecosystem and develop students’ capacity to critically engage with Google and the open web. In this study, we incorporated these learning objectives in an introductory computational thinking course, combining two information literacy pedagogies. For evaluating sources, we used Mike Caulfield’s SIFT technique (Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage; Trace claims to the original source); for resource discovery, Lane Wilkinson’s Information Needs, Types and Qualities lesson. We adapted Wilkinson’s worksheet, asked students to apply the SIFT technique to their chosen sources, and added a reflection component where students documented their research process. We conducted a content analysis of the assignment responses and coded evidence of students demonstrating knowledge practices and dispositions of two frames from the ACRL Framework, Authority is Constructed and Contextual and Searching as Strategic Exploration. Our analysis showed that students responded well to learning the SIFT technique, particularly at investigating sources; furthermore, Wilkinson’s pedagogy for source discovery encouraged students to use a wide variety of research tools. The reflection component further revealed evidence of students’ research processes and metacognition. We found this unit to be an effective means of assessing these Framework concepts, and argue that it can be applied to other topics and disciplines.