outsourcing trust to the information infrastructure in ...schooling. mikael alexandersson and louise...

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Outsourcing trust to the information infrastructure in schools

how search engines order knowledge in education practicesSundin, Olof; Carlsson, Hanna

Published in:Journal of Documentation

DOI:10.1108/JD-12-2015-0148

2016

Document Version:Other version

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Citation for published version (APA):Sundin, O., & Carlsson, H. (2016). Outsourcing trust to the information infrastructure in schools: how searchengines order knowledge in education practices. Journal of Documentation, 72(6), 990-1007.https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-12-2015-0148

Total number of authors:2

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Outsourcingtrusttotheinformationinfrastructureinschools:Howsearchenginesorderknowledgeineducationpractices

OlofSundinandHannaCarlssonDepartmentofArtsandCulturalSciences,LundUniversity,Lund,Sweden

AbstractPurpose – This paper investigates the experiences of school teachers of supportingpupils and their apprehensions of how pupils search and assess information whensearch engines have become a technology of literacy in schools. By situatingtechnologies of literacy as sociomaterial the purpose of this paper is to analyse anddiscusstheseexperiencesandunderstandingsinordertochallengedominantviewsofsearchininformationliteracyresearch.Design/methodology/approach–Sixfocusgroupinterviewswithintotal39teachersworking at four different elementary and secondary schools were conducted in theautumnof2014.Analysiswasdoneusingasociomaterialperspective,whichprovidestools for understanding how pupils and teachers interact with and are demanded totranslate their interest to technologies of literacy, in this case search engines, such asGoogle.Findings –The teachersexpresseddifficultiesof conceptualizing searchas somethingtheycouldteach.Whentheydid,searchwasmostoftenidentifiedasapracticalskill.Acriticalperspectiveonsearch,recognizingtheroleofGoogleasadominantpartoftheinformation infrastructureanda co- constructorofwhat there is toknowwas largelylacking. As a consequence of this neglected responsibility of teaching search, criticalassessmentofonlineinformationwasconflatedwithGoogle’srelevanceranking.Originality/value–Thestudydevelopsacriticalunderstandingoftheroleofsearchingand search engines as technologies of literacy in relation to critical assessment inschools.Thisisofvalueforinformationliteracytraining.Keywords Information literacy, Trust, Schools, Search engines, Sociomaterial,Searching,InformationinfrastructurePapertypeResearchpaper


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IntroductionFormorethantwodecades,searchenginesingeneralandGoogleinparticularhaveco-shapedwhat there is toknow,andmaybeevenmore importantly,practicesofhowtoknow things. The mobility of our digital devices has made constant access to ourinformation infrastructurepossible.Here the information infrastructure isunderstoodasnetworksconstitutingtheconditionsforknowingandhenceconstructingwhatistobe known, the importance of this knowledge and how it can be accessed and stored.Thus, knowledge ismediated to us by the information infrastructure and to trust (ordistrust) this infrastructure, consciously or not, is a prerequisite for contemporarysocietytofunction(cf.Hardin,2002;Simon,2015).Inthisarticlewearguethatsearchenginesconstituteanimportantpartoftheinformationinfrastructureofoureverydaylives. We also note that the search engine is one of many recently introducedtechnologiesof literacy inschools thatareconnected to“new literacies” (Lankshear&Knobel, 2008). Today, both teachers and pupils have access to Google throughsmartphones,laptopsandreadingdevicesanytimeandeverywhere,andtheboundariesbetweenschoolandeverydaylifeareincreasinglyblurred.Still,despiteitsimportance,searching for online information in school settings, typically equated with the use ofsearchengines, isnowadaysoftentakenforgranted–bypupils,teachers,andevenbyresearchers.One possible explanation is that using a search engine seems easy. However, thecomplexityofsearchingisstillpresent,yethiddeninalgorithmswhichtoalargeextentdirectwhatinformationisaccessedandtheorderofhowinformationispresented(e.g.Eklöf&Mager, 2012;Halavais, 2009; Introna&Nissenbaum,2000).Hence the searchengine’sorderofinformationisneithersimplenorneutral.Bearingthisinmind,wetakea normative starting point for this article, arguing that if or when the importance ofpupils’andteachers’abilitiesininformationsearchingandinassessingofinformationisrecognized, the question of how to advance information literacies from a criticalperspectivebecomescrucial.Havingsaidthat,ithasproventobedifficulttofindwaysto make these activities a part of teaching and learning (e.g. Limberg & Folkesson;Limberg& Sundin, 2006). Therefore,we direct our attention to teachers and exploretheirexperiencesofsupportingthepupilsandtheirunderstandingofhowtheirpupilssearchforandassessinformation.Byframingtechnologiesofliteracyassociomaterial,thestudyaimstoanalyseanddiscusstheseexperiencesandunderstandingsinordertochallenge dominant views of search in information literacy research. It does this byanalysing focus group discussions with teachers in the Swedish elementary andsecondaryschool,inwhichtheyreflectonassessmentofinformationandsearch.Inthefollowingsectionwepresentafocusedliteraturereview.Thereafter,weintroducethetheoreticalperspectiveofsociomaterialism,followedbyadescriptionofthemethodandmaterialused.Theempirical results are integratedwithananalysis, presented infourthemes.Inthefinalsectionondiscussionandconclusionwerelatetheresultstotheaimofthearticleanddeliberateonsomeconsequencesfortheemergingfieldofmediaandinformationliteracy.AssessmentofinformationandsearchingfromaliteracyperspectiveResearchoninformationseekinginrelationtoinformationliteracyhasoftenfocusedonthe seeking process. Carol Kuhlthau’s (2004) pioneering series of studies on pupils’information seeking process (ISP) in schools did establish a connection between


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thoughts, emotions and practices during the ISP.With a similar focus on the processperspective, Pertti Vakkari and NannaHakala (2000) have demonstrated how pupils’relevancecriteriachangewiththeprocessofsolvingatask.Therearealsoexamplesofresearch on information seeking in collaborative learning that supplementKuhlthau’smodel (e.g. Sormunen, Tanni & Heinström, 2013). Information seeking is a broadconceptandforthesakeofclarification,TomWilson(1999)hassuggestedadistinctionbetweenthiswidertermandthemorespecificinformationsearching.Searchingisthen“defined as a sub-set of information-seeking, particularly concerned with theinteractions between the information user (with or without an intermediary) andcomputer-basedinformationsystems”(Wilson,1999,p.262f).Inthepresentpaper,itissearchingratherthanseekingthatisaddressed,butnotinatraditionalsense.Inlibraryand information science searching often becomes an issue about optimising precisionand recall in information systems. As we approach searching from a sociomaterialperspective other questions are of interest, namely pertaining to how people andtechnologyareentangledinpracticesofsearchingforinformation.Previous research on online searching and information literacy has shown thedifficulties of pupils in critically evaluating sources and understanding how searchenginesactuallyfunction(Julien&Barker,2009).BuildingonsuchfindingsHeidiJulienand Susan Barker (2009) argue for the need to develop the pupils’ searching andevaluation skills. In an extensive literature review, Ian Rowlands (2008) and hiscolleagues question the belief that young people are more advanced than previousgenerationsinthewaytheyusethewebforfindinginformation.InoneofmanysimilarstudiesThomasScottandMichaelO’Sullivan(2005)demonstratethelackofsearchingskills of pupils in theUS.At the same time,with the expansionof the Internet, pupilshavebeengivenmoreresponsibilityforassessingtherelevanceandtrustworthinessofinformation.Today,pupilsarenotjustsupposedtoreadliteratureprovidedbyteachersand librarians, they are often asked to find information on their own aswell, and toconstructtheirownarguments(Limbergetal.,2008).How online information is assessed and what types of criteria are used has beenreported in many studies (Francke, Sundin & Limberg, 2011; Rieh & Hilligoss, 2008;Savolainen, 2011). Earlier research has shown that pupils often have a naïve,understandingoffactsandhashighlightedthedominantstatusoffactsincontemporaryschooling. Mikael Alexandersson and Louise Limberg (2003) have brought to light adichotomy,oftenoccurringbetween factsandopinionsamongpupils.HelenaFrancke,Olof Sundin and Louise Limberg (2011) have claimed that pupils regard informationseeking as fact seeking, rather than seeking to understand (cf. Blikstad-Balas &Hvistendahl, 2013; Todd, 2006). One expression of the pupils’ problems in assessinginformationistheabundanceofguidelinesandchecklistsforassessingtheinformationavailable online. These guidelines and checklists include, among other things,recommendations such as this: “Authority –Who is behind the source? Objectivity –Whatisthepurpose?Authenticity–Whatinformationispresented?Relevance–Whenwasitwritten?”[translatedfromSwedish](LinnaeusUniversity,2013).Checklists,suchas this,havebeencriticized in the information literacy literature, amongother things,for not considering contextual aspects (Meola, 2004; cf. Elmborg, 2006; Tuominen,Savolainen&Talja,2005).


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Furthermore, earlier research has demonstrated difficulties for teachers to developteaching in the field of information literacy (Merchant&Hepworth, 2002). There aredifferentconceptionsofwhatinformationliteracyshouldhaveasastartingpoint–theteachingofskillsorthepupils’inquiries(Williams&Wavell,2007).Therehasalsobeenacallforinformationliteracytobeintegratedintheclassroomthroughinquiry-basedorproblem-based learning (Chu, Tse & Chow, 2011; Smith, 2013; Walton & Hepworth,2011). Limberg and Folkesson (2006) have shown that the assessment criteria ofinformationliteracyabilitiesinschoolsdonotmirrorwhatisactuallytaughtbyteachersand librarians. Heidi Hongisto and Eero Sormunen’s (2010) classroom study oninformation literacy in secondaryschoolsechoesLimberg’sandhercolleagues (2008)argumentsforanincreasedfocusoncriticalassessmentofinformationandinformationuseratherthaninformationseekingskills.Earlierresearchoninformationliteracyhasthus provided an understanding of the difficulties in teaching information literacy.However,thereisalackofinterestinexploringsearchfromasociomaterialperspectiveaswellastakingintoaccounttheco-constructivenatureofliteracytechnologies.Insteadof analysing technologies of literacy as something outside human activity, that eithercouldbeseenasaneutraloradeterminingtool,embeddedinpractices(cf.Bruce,1997)itisarguedheretoregardthesetechnologiesassociomaterial.Theco-constructiveagencyoftechnologyinpracticesofsearchisdiscussedintheworksofKenHillis,MichaelPetitandKylieJarrett(2014).TheyclaiminGoogleandthecultureofsearchthattheconceptofrelevancehasbeenco-developedwithsearchenginesandisjuxtaposed with “utility, objectivity, and quality of search” (p. 62). In other words,peopleexperienceGoogle as representinganobjective representationofwhat is tobeknown, and at the same time the search results are personalized for the individualsearcher.Empiricalresearchsupportsthisclaim.Forexample,BingPanetal.(2007;cf.Kammerer & Gerjets, 2012), conclude that college students put considerable trust inGoogle’s ranking of links. However, there are also consequences of a different naturestemming from our current information infrastructure, discussed in the literature. InInfoglut (2013), Mark Andrejevic point to the paradoxical notion of us beingtechnologicallybetterequipped thanever toaccess information,andat thesame time“wearesimultaneouslyandcompellinglyconfrontedwiththeimpossibilityofeverbeingfully informed” (p. 2). When so much attention is directed to the need of a criticalattitude toward what we read and see, there is, according to Andrejevic (2013), atendencytousethecritiquetoargueforaconstantuncertaintyinwhichallknowledgeclaimscouldbecontested.Itisevidentfrompreviousresearchhowsearchenginesdefragmentafieldofknowingandhow the sheer amount of possible information sourcesmakes a complete pictureimpossible.Whatwedonotknowishowthosewhoaresupposedtoeducateouryouth,theteachers,apprehendthissituationinschools,seenfromasociomaterialperspective.AsociomaterialunderstandingofinformationliteracyOur theoretical perspective in this article is sociomaterial (e.g. Orlikowski & Scott,2008),meaningthattechnologiesareunderstoodasembeddedinandmadepossiblebypractices. Such a perspective has most often been developed in the tradition ofinformationliteracyresearchwithinasocioculturaltraditionand/orwithinnewliteracystudies,buildingonVladimirVygotsky(cf.Lundh&Alexandersson,2012;Meyers,2009)or a practice-theoretical perspective (Lloyd, 2012), but has been less exploredwithin


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the theoretical frame of Actor-Network Theory (ANT). We deploy the sociomaterialperspective,withmorespecific inspiration fromANT, inorder tounderstandhowtheactivitiesofassessinginformationandsearchingarenotjustconnectedto,butinfactarepart of the technologies involved (cf. Bruce, 1997; Johansson, 2012). From asociomaterial perspective humans and non-humans are analytically treated as beingequal,andbotharebeingapproachedasactors.DrawingonBrunoLatour(2005), theinteractionbetweenpeople,artefactsandpoliciesandsoforthcouldthusbeanalysedasactors coming together in an assemblage, or network. In a school setting, teachers,pupils,textbooks,websites,syllabus,and,aswecouldadd,searchenginealgorithmsareactors from this perspective, forming a network that is enacted through theirinteractionswitheachother.Theanalyticalfocushereisnotontechnologyoronpeopleasstable,separateentities,butontheinteractionbetweenthem.Foranactor-networktoremainitsactorsmusttranslatetheiractivitiestothoseofotheractors(Law,1999;Latour,2005,p.108).Whennewactorsarebroughtintotheschoolsetting, for example new technologies of literacy such as search engines, translationsmusttakeplace inordertomakeinteractionswithintheassemblagepossible. WandaOrlikowski and Susan Scott (2008, p. 465) describe search engines in a sociomaterialperspectiveinthefollowingway:

AwebsearchconductedwiththeGooglesearchengineissociomaterial“allthewaydown,”entailingcomputercodewrittenandupdatedbysoftwareengineers, executing on computers (configured with particular hardwareand software elements which were designed and built by computerengineersandproductionworkers),andwhoseoperationdependson themillions of people who use computers to create and update web pageseveryday,andthemillionsofpeoplearoundtheworldwhoenterparticularsearch criteria into theirweb browsers running on still other computersdesignedandbuiltbyyetotherpeople,andsoon.

When Google is brought into the assemblage of a school setting and given a centralposition there is a continuous negotiation and translation between different actorsconsideringhowtotranslatetoGoogle.The concept of an obligatory passage point, developed by Callon (1986), refers to anactorthatallactorsinanetworkneedtointeractwithandtranslatetheirintereststo.Inschool settings, the syllabus and its knowledge requirements could be seen as anobligatorypassagepoint.Teachersplantheirteachinginrelationtothesyllabus,pupilswanttogetagoodgradeandthereforerelatetothesyllabus.Publishersdeveloptheirprintedbooksordigitalinformationwiththesyllabusinmind.Atthesametime,Googlehasnot justbeenbrought intoeveryday life,but intotheclassroomaswell. InashorttimeGoogle has become an obligatory passage point inmany contemporary practices(Mager,2009)and, thus,contributestotheshapingofwhat isregardedasknowledge.JosévanDijckdescribeshowGoogleco-produceacademicknowledge:“Knowledgeisnotsimplyconveyedtousers,butco-producedbythesearchengine’srankingsystemsandprofiling systems,noneofwhichareopen to the rulesof transparency, relevanceandprivacy in amanner known from library scholarship in the public domain” (2010, p.575).A sociomaterial perspectiveprovides tools for analysinghowpupils, and in factteachers, interact with and are required to translate their interest to Google in


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particular.Thesearchengineco-producesknowledgeand inourcaseweanalysehowthetranslationsaremadeinrelationtothesearchengine.MethodFocus group discussions with teachers were carried out in order to get as rich andvaried descriptions as possible of what is going on in the classrooms. In the focusgroups, theparticipants’ variousexperiencesandattitudesaremetandanalysedonacollectivelevelratherthanasindividualstatements(Morgan,1997).Thefocalpointofthefocusgroupsweretheteachers’experiencesofthepupils’informationsearchingandassessmentofinformation–whatisoftenregardedasactivitiesofinformationliteracy–andtheteachers’experiencesofteachinginrelationtoinformationliteracy.Six focus groupswith in total 39 teachers (average age 42 years) from four differentschools (School 1, School 2, School 3, School 4a-b)were conducted during the fall of2014.Thelengthofthefocusgroupsvariedbetween54minutesandonehourand26minutes, with an average length of one hour and 14 minutes. All focus groups wereconductedattheschoolswheretheparticipantsworked.Twooftheschoolshaveclassesranging frompreschool class (thepupilsare6yearsold) to level9 (thepupilsare15yearsold)andtwooftheschoolshaveclassesrangingfromlevel4twolevel9.Twooftheschoolsareprivateandtwoaremunicipal,buttheyarefollowingthesamesyllabus(Lgr11) and its specific knowledge requirements. The teachers’ have had experiencesfromworkingwith pupils ranging from year 4 to 9 (ages 11 to 15) and the averageexperienceof teachingwas13years.Altogether theyrepresent teachers fromabroadvarietyofsubjects,forexampleSwedish,NaturalScience,Civics,History,SocialScienceand Mathematics. Ten of the participating teachers were teaching in the subjectSwedish,which is the subject, according toTheSwedishCurriculumforthecompulsoryschool(Lgr11,2011),formallyresponsibleforteachinginformationsearching.However,accordingtoLgr11,informationsearchingandsourceevaluationshouldbepracticedinallsubjects.Themixofteachersfromdifferentsubjects,withdifferentexperiencesandworkingwithpupilsofdifferentagescreatedgoodopportunitiesforrichdiscussions.The discussions were open ended but moderated by one of the authors with andiscussion guide in order tomake sure that the discussions in different focus groupsrevolved around roughly the same topics. In accordance with the theoreticalperspective, the focusgroupdiscussionstooktheirstartingpoint inveryconcreteandmaterial situations.Google became a catalyst formuch of the discussions. Thiswas adeliberatedecisionbytheresearchers,butitwasalsoatopicthattheparticipantscouldrelate to easily. Later on in the discussions, the teachers were confronted with twoscenarios that they were asked to deliberate on. One scenario concerned whichinstructionspupilsshouldgetwhenstartingaprojectandtheotherscenarioconcernedwhat teaching should include in relation to information searching and criticalassessment of information. The scenarios worked in multiple ways, giving the moreexperiencedteachersanopportunitytorelatetoactualeventswhileteacherswithlessexperienceof the investigated topicweregivenachance to reflect.Thescenariosalsoencouraged the teachers to provide rich descriptions of their experiences and thusprovidedinsightsintothedailypracticesintheclassroom.Forthepurposeofthispaper,weareinterestedintheparticipants’jointdescriptionsofdaily practices in the classroom, particularly interactions and enactments of relations


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betweensignificantactors,suchassearchengines,pupils,syllabusandteachers.Hence,here the primary analytical focus is on the content of the focus group discussions.However,payingattentiontotheparticularcontextandcompositionofparticipants ineachfocusgroupmadeitpossibletoalsoconsiderthesocialdynamicineachgroup(cf.Halkier,2010).Allfocusgroupswererecordedandsubsequentlytranscribedatalevelofdetail corresponding toouranalytical focusoncontent rather thansocialdynamicsand conversation.That is, thediscussionswere reproducedverbatim,but intonations,accentuations,pauses,andsoforthwerenotincluded.Whenquoting,someadjustmentsto thewritten languagehavebeenmade.The second step in the analysis consistedofcareful and repeated readings of each transcription. The readings resulted inestablishing three empirical themes that occurred in all focus groups. The themesencompassed similarities and differences both with regards to individual statementsmadebyparticipantsandbetweentheaggregatedcollectivelevelsofeachfocusgroup.Finally, the different themes were analysed with a closer attention paid to thetheoretical perspective. A specific focus in this phase of the analysis concernedtranslation (Law,1999)betweenactors,which isacoreassumption inActor-NetworkTheory. This last phase of the analysis led to the establishment of a fourth theme(Criticalassessmentofinformationasamatterofconcern).All quotations have been translated from Swedish to English. There are a number ofterms in the scholarly literature that try to capture thepracticeofdetermining if andhow we could trust a certain information source: source criticism, informationevaluation, informationassessment,mediacredibility,qualityof information,cognitiveauthority(Savolainen,2007)–justtomentionafew.Inthefollowing,thetermcriticalassessmentofinformationwillbeusedsincethetermbringsaboutacriticaldimensionwhen referring to methods and practices of evaluating the trustworthiness of onlineinformation.ResultGoalormethodTheroleofGoogle intoday’ssocietyingeneralandmorespecificallyinschoolscannotbeunderestimated.AnumberofstudieshaveshownhowGoogleismobilizedininquiry-based learning(e.g. Julien&Barker,2009;Sundin&Francke,2009).At thesametimethis paramount position is not reflected in the education system (Sundin, 2015). Adividinglineindiscussionswiththeteacherswereifparticularlysearchingbutalsotosomeextentcriticalassessmentof informationshouldbeseenasateachingcontentinitselforiftheywereonlytobeseenasmethodstoachieveotherlearninggoals:“doyouwant the to reach the goal direct or do youwant to train [them] to reach the goal?”(School4a) If the former is the case, thepupils’ lessdeveloped information searchingandassessmentofsourcescouldbeovercomebyprovidingthemwithqualitycontrolledinformationsourcesinadvance.However,ifthelatteristhecase,informationsearchingandcriticalassessmentofinformationbecomesanintegratedpartofteachingandpartlyaknowledgedomaininitselfbynecessity.Anotherfocusgroupdiscussedthedifficultiesteachers experience, particularly with younger pupils, when trying to teach criticalassessment of information: “I don’t know, I think they are too young for this”. Theteacher continues by stressing what he believes is toomuch focus on computers: “Itsoundsabitoldfashionedtosaythis,ithasbecomeabithystericalwithcomputersinschools. It isreallygood,and itshould facilitateasreferencebook…but ithas turned


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somehow…theyarenotasmatureaswethink.Sometimesitfeelslikewearesupposedtoteachthemtoomuch.”(School1)If the teacher has no intention to focus on critical assessment of information orsearching as a learning content, the question is rather how to make sure the pupilsaccessquality-controlledinformation.Here,teachinghasnotbeentranslatedtosearchengines and the search for information (Law, 1999). One of the check-list criteriamentionedabove,“whoistheauthor”,turnsupfrequentlyinthefocusgroups,especiallywhen Wikipedia is compared to traditionally edited and editor-controlledencyclopaedias: “I try instead to lead them towardsNE [a Swedish commercial onlineencyclopaedia] because it is much clearer in stating whom actually has written thearticle”(School4a).Oftenthetimefactorismentionedascrucialforteachingpriorities:

-No, I probably thought about itwhen I talked about that essay, thatweprovidedthemwithsources.Itwasbecausewehadsoextremelylittletime,therefore they don’t have time to sit [many voices] and we have tencomputersandfortystudents.- Yes, but it's in someways alsomy point because they get stuck in thissearching.(School4b)

Inawaysearchingcanbecontrollediftheteacherundertakesthesearch:"ifthatisthecaseandtherestill issomeonewhowant[tofind]somethingthenyou’llhavecometomesoIsearchforitandifwefinditwefindit”(School4b).Theexamplesaboveshowthatthewishtoprotectthepupilsfromnon-reliablesourcesisconnectedtoalackofinterestinmakingbothcriticalassessmentofinformationandsearching a content of teaching and learning. Critical assessment of information andsearch have a stronger position in some subjects in the Swedish curriculum than inothers,particularly in theSocialSciencesubjectsand inSwedish(Sundin,2015): “Yes,well,lastspringIactuallyhadanentirecoursenamedsourcesandcriticalassessmentofinformation where I mixed Social Science Subjects and Swedish so it was only thosecapabilitiesthatwereassessed”(School2).Tosomeextent,thediscussionsalsorevealan increased focus on search the older the pupils are, which is also in line with theknowledgerequirementsinthesyllabus.Oneteacherofpupilsage15states:“/…/soit’sagoalinitselfthattheyshouldbemoreindependentandtakeinitiatives,andthentheyshouldnothaveasmuch[help].Thenit’spartoftheirworktolookupinformationforthemselves, independently” (School 4c). This statement stands in contrast to the oneabove on information control anddemonstrate how search and critical assessment ofinformation are treated differently depending on the teacher, the subject and the agelevelofthepupils.Theteachershaddifficulties inconceptualizingsearchingasapartoftheteachingandlearning. The researcher could ask questions about searching, but the teachersmadetheir own interpretation of the question and often started to talk about criticalassessmentofinformationinstead.Searchingwasrarelyidentifiedasanissueinitself:“But it feels like thegistof informationsearch is thatagreat responsibility follows tomanagecriticalassessmentof information”(School4c). Inanotherquote, theteachersstressassessmentofinformationanduse,ratherthansearching


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-/…/theproblemisnotforthemtosearchforfacts.-No,exactly.-Butmanytimeshowtorelatetothefactsonesearchesforandhowtousethem.(School1)

Theteachers’discussionechoes in factsomeof the information literacy literaturethatarguesforanincreasedfocusoninformationuseratherthansearching.Thedifficultiestheparticipantshadinconceptualizingsearchingcouldberelatedtocriticalassessmentofinformationandhowithashadalongandestablishedroleintheschoolenvironment,even before the great advance of digital technology in this setting. Searching, on theotherhand,becameapartofschoolculturewhenthedatabasewasintroduced,aformof technology that resists comparison with older media technologies. The concept ofremediationcouldbeusedheretounderstandthisdifference.BolterandGrusin(2000,p. 273) define remediation as: “the formal logic bywhich newmedia refashion priormedia forms”.Searchenginesdonotremediateoldwaysof finding information in thesamewayasforexampleWikipediaremediatesprintedencyclopaedias.Thedifferentways the teachersapproachedcriticalassessmentof informationand/orsearching–eitherasamethodtoreachothergoalsoraslearningthecontentinthem–couldbeunderstoodasdifferentwaysoftranslatingGoogleintothepracticeofteaching.Diverse translations can take place even though the teachers work with the samesyllabus.Theteachers’understandingoftheroleofinformationliteracyinthecurriculainthiscaseresemblesearlierresearch(e.g.Boon,Johnston&Webber,2007;Limberg&Folkesson,2006).Whatisasavvysearcher?Whentheteachersinthefocusgroupsmadesearchingapartofteachingandlearning,thefocuswasaboveallonconceptualisingsearchingasapracticalskillof filteringthevast amount of information any topic creates. One theme in the discussions was thepupils’abilitytoformulatequestionsorsearchtermsthattheycoulduseinGoogle:“andthenthey,Ithink,havedifficultiesalsotoformulatequestionsonGoogle”(School1).Inaquotation, one participant discussed how the pupils often became overloaded withirrelevantinformationduetotoobroadquestions:

ThoughIthinkitisas[teacherX]saysthattheysometimeshavedifficultiesinsearchingforfacts.Sincetheydonotknowhowtoaskthequestions.IfIhaveaquestion [on]what is typical for thisprofession theydonotknowthattheyshouldenter‘typical’forwhataretypicalchoresofatruckdriverorsomething.Theydon’tunderstandhowtoformulatethequestion.(School1)

In thequote, thedifficultiesconcernhowtoassuretopicalrelevancebyaddingsearchterms in order to get better precision. However, discussions also related how termscould be used in order to delimit the results to more reliable information: “Write'official' isalsoonewaysometimestogeta littlecloser”(School4a).These,andother,examplesof simply reducing thenumberof hits could, in thewordsofAndrejevic, bereferredtoas“shortcutsthatbypassestheneedtocomprehendproliferatingnarrativeorreferentialrepresentations”(2013,p.4).Andrejevicdoesnotmentionsearchenginesin this respect,but theproblemof apprehendingmore information thanyouever can


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readcouldalsobeconvertedtothewebandGoogle.Thatis,iftherelevanceofaGooglesearch isnotquestioned,youdonotneedtoconsiderquestionsofrepresentation; thehitsontopofthelistareseenasunquestionablycorrect.Therearealsoothertricksofthe trade mentioned in the discussions on how to assess information. One teacherdescribes forexamplehowtheyanalysedomainaddresses:“Weusuallytalkaboutthesuffixdotse[.se],dotcom[.com]tomentioncrediblesources”(School4a).Tipsonhowtoreducethenumberofhitsorhowtoquicklyassessawebsitebylookingatthedomainaddress qualify as typical information literacy skills that could be found in manychecklists.Practical skills were prioritized when the discussions centred on teaching content ofsearching:“[I]reallytriedtoteachthemstepbystephowtolookforinformationonline”(School 4c). The teachers attributed a critical dimension to the assessment ofinformation,butnottosearching:

-Formeitisprobablyverymuchaboutthattheyshouldunderstandwhoitisthat[...]whoorwhatistheInternetbecause[those]whohaswrittenallofthisisthere,it’snotathingbut[...]everythingthatisthereiswrittenandthereisapurposeforittobethere,andtofindoutthepurpose,havingthekeystofindthepurposebehindwhythisinformationishere…- And be aware that it is a tool of power for various forces, politicalpropagandaortoolsforbuyingorlureus[inaudible]lotsofmoney.Andtoreallythinkthroughwhowrotethisandwhy.(School4a)

Morecriticalnotionssuchastheseweregivenwhenreferringtosearchingreplacedbyapracticalskillapproach:“[t]henitisbetterthatwegivethemthetoolstomanageittherightway.Tosearchforinformationisnotsomethingbadorcheating,butitisallaboutgettingeducatedandthenyoushouldsurelydoittherightway.Thatiswhereweare,inthat we should help them in this jungle of everything that is out there” (School 4b).When searching has become naturalized into our everyday life (Hillis, Petit & Jarrett,2013), the activity is not identified as something you need to learn. Sundin (2015)notices inananalysisof theSwedishcurriculumforcompulsoryschools (level1 to9)howsearchingistranslatedintoaneutralmethodinthecurriculum,ratherthanbeingapproachedfromacriticalperspective.Therearesomeexceptionsinthematerialindicatingthatsearchingcouldbetreatedassomethingmorethanpracticalskills.Oneoftheseexceptionsisawishtorelateasavvysearcher to thegeneralunderstandingsofa topic: “Iwasgoing tosay that it feels likeyoumusthavesomeknowledgeandbeabletosearch. Imean[if] there isapersontolookupyoumustroughlyknowwherehelivesandroughlywhatheworkswith”(School2).Youcan,accordingtotheparticipant,notjustusetheinformationinfrastructureforsearching without being able to understand what you find. In another of theseexceptions,oneteacherformulateswhatsearchingasasubjectforteachingandlearningcouldbe:

I actually had some of that with my students last semester, about whatcomesupwhenyousearch foraword,andmanystudents thought itwas


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thepagewith thehighest relevance that cameupor thepage thatmaybewasthemosttrustworthythatcameupfirst,butit'snotreallylikethat...(School2)

Here the teacher questions the habit of equating Google’s relevance ranking withtrustworthiness,without really distancing herself from the skill-oriented approach. Ingeneral,whatwasbeingleftoutofthefocusgroupdiscussionsweretheconsequencesofa developmentwhere search engines have become obligatory passage points (Callon,1986)inmanycontemporarypractices.Assuchtheycontributetotheformationofhowinformationisdistributedandhowtrustisconstructedinsociety.RelyingonGoogleTheteacherscomplainedaboutthepupils’lackofabilitytocriticallyassessinformation.Whensearchingforsomething,theyonlyreadthefirstlinkonthelist,accordingtotheteachers: “The pupils buy the first thing they find” (School 2). There was almostunanimity among the teachers regarding the pupils’ lack of critical assessment ofinformationwhilesearchingforinformation.Oneteacherdescribesthephenomenonthefollowingway:“Ihavehadfourthgradepupils,butIalsohavehadyoungerpupilsandtheydonothavethiscriticalassessmentof informationbuttheyswallowprettymucheverything – hook, line and sinker” (School 4b). In this case, the pupilswere only 11yearsold,butfurtheroninthesamefocusgroupitseemsthattheagedoesnotalwaysmatter:

Teacher8:Idonotknowhowtheninthgradedo,whatkindsofexperiencesyouhave.Becausetheyare,afterall…Teacher7:Embarrassinglybadatit.Teacher8:Arethey?Teacher 5: There is not much critical assessment of information thereeither,Idosay.(School4b)

That the pupils often, according to the teachers, demonstrated a lack of criticalassessmentof informationgoeshand inhandwithaveryhighlevelof trust inGoogle.The ranking of search results in Google – what Google calls relevance – is rarelyquestioned. Hillis, Petit and Jarret (2013, p. 58) state: “Google equates quality andrelevance”, and if you put trust in Google’s relevance criteria, as a consequence yououtsourcecriticalassessmentofinformationtotheinformationinfrastructureand,moreprecisely, to the algorithms of the search engines. This outsourcing of criticalassessmentofinformationtoGooglecouldalsoberelatedtoplagiarism:

/.../oneshouldnotgeneralize,butmanystudentsarecompletelyuncriticalandmanystudentsdonotseethedifferencebetweenborrowingatextandcreating a text yourself, but they quite gladly cut and paste it into theirpapers,thenitistheirtext,asiftheythemselveshadwrittenit,andtheygetalmostoffendedifyousaythatitiscopiedsincetheyhavechangedalittlebitbeforeandalittlebitafter.Itcanbeabigchunkinthemiddlethatcouldbecopied,buttheyhavemadealittle[change]hereandthereanditistheirtext.(School4a)


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If theanswerprovidedbyaGoogle search is seenasaperfect representationofwhatthere is to know on a scale of importance (relevance), so why should that text bealtered?Thepupils’habitsofcopyingandpastingcouldofcoursebeseenasaconsciousattempttocheat,butitcouldalsobeinterpretedasalackofunderstandingofGoogle’salgorithms for calculating relevance. It is not only the pupils who translate theirquestions to Google; the search engine also translates its “response” to theparticularitiesofaspecificsearch.Thereisadesirefortheinstantaneous:“whattheygetis what there is, it’s this instantaneity again, is itWikipedia [as the] first [link], it isWikipediaIclickon”(School4c).Reflexivityisanecessarypartofthecriticalassessmentof information, but when immediacy and instantaneity are privileged, reflexivitybecomes subordinated: “Fastest, being ready fastest is the best and then they get afinished text just like that,whoops, and it's ready (School 1). If the representation ofwhat is tobeknown ismadebyGoogle every timea search is executed, it is taken tomirroran“objective”rankingof“quality”andthereisnoneedforreflectioninaschoolculturecharacterizedbyspeed(c.f.Hillis,Petit&Jarret,2013,p.62).Googlemakesafastsummary for us – in less than one second – ofwhat there is to know and prioritisesbetweenvastnumbersofwebsites.ThenotionofGoogleasaknowledge-machine,withmany historical precursors, taking charge of our learning, becomes apparent (cf.Andrejevic, 2013, p. 14). Andrejevic (ibid.) writes about “the attempt to bypassrepresentation.”Thehit list ofGoogle is obviously all about representation, andwhenGoogle is used in a non-reflexive way the question of representation seems to beforgotten.TheformerCEOofGooglestatedin2013:“Iactuallythinkmostpeopledon'twantGoogletoanswertheirquestions.TheywantGoogletotellthemwhattheyshouldbe doing next” (Jenkins Jr, 2010). Our ways of knowing and getting to know areincreasinglyoutsourced toGoogle, a claim that is further supportedby the findingsofthepresentstudy.CriticalassessmentofinformationasamatterofconcernDespite the fact that the teachersreportedpupilshavingproblems, thecall forcriticalassessment of information characterises much of contemporary western culture:“ShouldItrustthisnowordoIhavetoassessinformationcriticallyallthetime–quiteexhaustingactually”(School2).Thisthemeislessdominantinthematerial,butsinceitis theoretically interestingandpotentiallyconsequential, it isstill included.Oneof theteacher’s complaints seems paradoxical compared to many of the other teachers’experiences.Shesuggests thatherefforts increatingsourcecriticalpupilshave led toanotherkindofproblem.The15-year-oldpupils “don’t trustanythingsince theyhavelearnedtobegoodandcriticaltowardsinformation.Thenit’slikethis,‘no,Idon’ttrustanyone’(School3)“.Thediscussioninthefocusgroupcontinuedwithanotherteacherquestioningthis ’problem’,whichledtoashortdiscussiononthetopicamongthreeoftheparticipants:

-Butthenonehassomehowactuallysucceededwithwhatyouweredoinginsixthgradewithpupils,Ithink- But at the same time you leave them with a “you-can’t-trust-anyone-world”that’snotgoodeither-Nowellthat’swhereweleadthemreallybecauseweaskthemtoquestioneverything. “what purposedoes this personhavewhenhe/she says that”and try to find opposite sides. In the end they can’t make up their ownminds.Itjustbecomesliketheyjusttakein[inaudible].


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(School3)Andrejevic (2013) claims that due to the vast information landscape it is virtuallyimpossible to be sure of being fully informed on anything. This has, according to thesame author, been seen as a token for all kinds of conspiracy theories and politicalextremism,forexampleattemptstodeconstructestablishedevidenceofthegreenhouseeffect or the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks. This distrust of every knowledge claimcouldbeseenastheothersideofthecoin.Toneitherquestiontherelevanceofthetophits nor question the credibility of the information as such could in fact be seen asexpressionsofthesameidea.Eitheryoudonothavetoquestionanythingoryoushouldquestioneverything.Theteachersinanothergrouprelatetotheirownthoughtsofhowtheneedforcriticalassessmentisdifferentindifferentsubjectsandoneofthemstatesinrelationtohistorythat“No,noteverything,but it isabiasedtruth”(School4a).Yetanother teacher argues instead for showing thepupils “a bank of trustworthyplaces”(School4b).ThisthemeshouldofcourseberelatedtothethemeofGoalormethod.Critical assessment of information can be used to question the legitimacy of anyknowledge claimand searchingbecomesonly a questionof searching for informationsupporting thedeparturepoint of the searcher.This notionof questioning everythingcould be related to Latour’s (2003) argumentation for matters of concern instead ofmatter of facts. The enormous amount of information onwebsites, tweets, Facebook-updatesandsoforth,makesitimpossiblenottofindinformationsayingsomethingelse– there is always an alternative voice that could support your own bias. One teacherreflectsonthisinthefollowingway:

/…/ actually, the internet creates its own reality as well, there is a newreality, that puts facts together in new contexts, then it becomes its ownreality in a sense that has relevance as long as it is in there and that iswheremanypupilsknowmuchmore than ...well, I knowalmostnothingaboutit.Inoticethatit’sputintonewcontextsandsoon,abunchoffactsanditfitstogether,butitfitsinacompletelydifferentwaythanitdidfromthebeginninginsomeway.(School2)

Latour(2003)hascalledattentiontohowsciencestudies–oncedevelopedinordertounderstandtheco-constructivistcharacterofestablishedknowledge–nowareusedtomotivate absolute certainty and promote conspiracy theories. Andrejevic (2013)connectsLatour’swritingsto“informationpracticesofthevulgarpostmodernrightthatseekstounderminetheversionofcritiqueastruthtelling”(p.11).Thefact thatmanypeople todayhaveexperiencedself-publishing informationon theweb incombinationwiththeincrediblenumberofwebpagesonanysubjecthasmadepossible“theattempttodeconstruct certainty itself” (Andrejevic, 2013, p. 11). Latour’s (2003) answer is toturn frommatters of fact tomatters of concern.He asks us to study the gathering ofthings, that is how objects aremade into things through the gathering of actors: “allobjectsarebornthings,allmattersoffactrequire,inordertoexist,abewilderingvarietyofmattersofconcern”(Latour,2003,p.246).Referringbacktothepracticeandmethodofcriticalassessmentofinformation,toassessinformationis,accordingtothisview,nota question of checking if a fact is “true” or not in a referential sense. It is rather aquestionofassessinghowthefactismadethroughassociationsandlinksinanetwork–not just in a technical sense but also in a sense of metaphorical understanding. It is


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additionally a question of understanding the role of search engine algorithms seen asactors in this process. Sheila Jasanoff (2004) describes the role of the researcher: ”tomake visible the connections that co-production renders invisible” (p. 22). To makesearchafocusofteachingrequiresnotsimplyconveyingsearchknow-how,somethingthat most people at a basic level already possess, but an understanding of howrelevance,accordingtosearchengines,isproducedand,morefundamentally,theroleofsearchenginesinsociety.DiscussionandconclusionThispapercallsforarenewedinterestinsearchasacontentofteachingandlearning.The theoretical perspective is sociomaterial, particularly deploying some analyticalconcepts from the Actor-Network Theory. Focus is placed on actors and how theymutuallyconstituteeachotherinnetworkrelations.Ontheonehandthemainactorsinthisstudyareteachers,andpupils,asdescribedbytheteachers.Ontheotherhand,themainactorsarealsoGoogleandthemediatedknowledgeclaimsGoogleranks.In the focus groups, critical assessment of information and searching are treated asanalyticallyindependentfromoneanother.Searchingandassessmentareoftengivenacausal relationship: When searching becomes a common way to access information;criticalassessmentofinformationbecomesmorenecessary.Accordingtotheteachersinthereportedstudy,aswellasinearlierresearch(e.g.Panetal.,2007),thepupils’putalotoftrustinGoogle.Inmanycasestheyconfinetheirreadingtotophitsintheresult-list. In a way, the search engine results therefore actually become a part of theassessment.Awebsiteisgivenitssignificancenotjustaccordingtoitscontent,butalsoduetohowthemediaecologyfunctionsonthewebandhowwellawebsiteisadjustedto the algorithms of Google. There are about 200 variables in the search engine’salgorithms. Number and quality of in-links is one such variable and there are alsovariablesforpersonalisationpurposes.Itpresumesthatawebsitewithmanyothersiteslinking to it ends up high on the result list. Your earlier search behaviour and yourgeographical location influence theorderofhitsontheresult listaswell.Exactlyhowthisworksandtowhatextentissomethingsearchengineoptimization(SEO)companieswork hard to unmask. When assessing a website, you are in fact evaluating thefunctionality of Google’s relevance assessment and the assessment is therefore to alargerextentcarriedoutbynon-humanactorsthanbyhumans.Atthesametime,theteachershaddifficultiesconceptualisingsearchassomethingtheycouldteach.Inthecasestheyactuallydid,searchwasmostoftenidentifiedasapracticalskill. The extremely important role Google has in many contexts, as the number oneaccess-point for information for most people, was not brought up. There was nodiscussionoftheimportanceofunderstandinghowGoogleconstructtheimportanceofknowledge inmany areas in society, not the least in schools. Limberg and Folkesson(2006;seealsoLimberg&Sundin,2006)arguefortheneedtoanalyseanddiscussthecontent of information literacy as an object for teaching. The information literacyliterature has investigated the evaluation of sources, or critical assessment ofinformation, for many years (e.g. Meola, 2004; Savolainen, 2011; Sundin & Francke,2009),buttherehasbeenlessinterestindevelopingwaysofunderstandingtheroleofsearching and search engines as technologies of literacy in relation to criticalassessment. The information literacy literature has explored the information seekingprocess (Kuhlthau, 2004; Vakkari & Hakala, 2000), but in this literature the


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sociomaterialaspectofsearch isnotconsidered.Furthermore,seekinghas latelybeenidentifiedaslessrelevantcomparedtocriticalassessmentofinformationorinformationuse(Limbergetal.,2008).ThereseemstobeaconflationbetweencriticalassessmentofonlineinformationandGoogle’srelevanceranking.Itisarguedherethatwhatweneedto develop is not just an updated approach to critical assessment of information, onethat considers the changing character of the web medium, but also a criticalapprehension of search that gives us reflexive abilities to understand how searchenginesprovideuswithaneworderofknowledge.Searchenginescouldinthisrespectbeseenasmachineriesofsignificanceproduction.The analysis presented above has implications for our understanding of informationliteracy as a part of the broader concept ofmedia and information literacy (MIL). Inrecent years, MIL has evolved as a concept bringing together two distinct, yetoverlapping research traditions (e.g. Koltay, 2011; Lee & So, 2014; Livingstone, vanCouvering & Thumim, 2009). It is difficult to talk about digital media today withoutreferringtohowtheyoftenarefragmentedandaccessedbysearchengines.Google,aswell as Facebook and Twitter, for example, could be seen as a super-medium in thisrespect,whichprovide the userwith informationproducedby others (Sundin, 2015).RichardRoger(2013,p.87)asksrhetorically: “Has theback-endalgorithmtakenoverfrom the traditional status-makers, the publishers, editors and other classicadjudicators?” That is, a topic of interest is to some extent defined by how Googlerepresents it (Haider, in press). In that way, as we have argued elsewhere (Sundin,2015),searchneedstobebroughtintothepictureinordertounderstanddigitalmedia.At the same time, people’s information seeking, an often explored phenomena ininformation literacy research, need to consider the materiality of the medium. SaraLivingstoneandhercolleagues(2009)concludethatthestrengthofinformationliteracyresearchliesindealingwithaccesswhilethestrengthofmedialiteracyresearchliesinmeaning and critical understanding. It has been demonstrated here how informationliteracy research can contribute to MIL, when moving beyond the skill-approach,withoutclaimingthatsearchingskillsarelessimportant.Ifthetworesearchtraditionsare taken together you get a critical understanding of information access and in thisstudy,suchalenshasbeenusedtoinvestigatetheroleofsearchandcriticalassessmentof information in schools. When Google is brought into the classroom, it seems thedifferent actors in schools have not been fully able to successfully translate theiractivities to eachother.The syllabus isnot appropriately translated to theknowledgeculture that Google offers. Pupils have not been able to translate their activities toGoogle,atleastnotintheeyesoftheteachers.Theyhaveinturnnotbeenabletomakesearchameaningfulcontentintheirenactmentofmediaandinformationliteracy,eventhough much of the information activities circulate around Google. Theoreticallyspeaking, it seemstobeaconflictbetweentwoobligatorypassagepoints(Googleandthesyllabus)inpartlyoverlappingactor-networks.Inconclusion,inorderforaneoliberal,consumerculturetowork,wehavetobetrainedto be “good” consumers, presumably making rational choices dependent on theinformationavailabletous.Inthisneoliberaldiscourseinformationisnotjustwhatyoureadinordertomakeinformedchoices.Ratherinformationisinitselfconceptualisedasagoodonamarket,whereforinstancethemostpopularsitesendupatthetopoftheresultlist.Searchengineshavebeeninfocushere,buttheyareofcourseonlyapartofthe information infrastructure.What characterizes this infrastructure is its invisibility


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(cf.Bruce&Hogan,1998;Hillis,Petit& Jarret,2013).GeoffreyBowker (2008)claims,andweagree,thatthebettertheinfrastructurefunctions,thelesswethinkaboutit.Inthe case ofGoogle-related activities, the search engine has become so popular partlybecause of its black box function that makes it perfectly possible to use withoutunderstandinghowitworks.Asinformationscholarsingeneralandinformationliteracyscholars inparticular,weneed toanalyseandmakevisible the intricacy,and to someextentunpacksomeofthetechnologiesofliteracy.Today’scultureofsearchdemandsacriticalunderstandingoftheco-dependenceofsearchingandassessmentofinformationinschools.AcknowledgementTheworkwas fundedby the SwedishResearchCouncil through the framework grant“KnowledgeinaDigitalWorld.Trust,CredibilityandRelevanceontheWeb”.ReferencesAlexandersson,M.andLimberg,L.(2003),“Constructingmeaningthroughinformationartefacts”,TheNewReviewofInformationBehaviourResearch,Vol.4No.1,pp.17–30.Andrejevic,M.(2013),Infoglut:HowtooMuchInformationisChangingtheWayweThinkandKnow,Routledge,NewYork.Blikstad-Balas, M. and Hvistendahl, R. (2013), “Students’ digital strategies andshortcuts”,NordicJournalofDigitalLiteracy,Vol.8No.1,pp.32–48.Bolter,R. J.,andGrusin,R. (2000),Remediation:UnderstandingNewMedia.Cambridge,Mass.,MITPress.Boon, S., Johnston, B. andWebber, S. (2007). “A phenomenographic study of Englishfaculty's conceptions of information literacy”, JournalofDocumentation, Vol. 63No. 2,pp.204-228.Bowker,G.(2008),MemoryPracticesintheSciences,Cambridge,Mass.,MITPress.Bruce, B. C. (1997), “Literacy technologies: What stance should we take?” Journal ofLiteracyResearch,Vol.29No.2,pp.289–309.Bruce, B. C. and Hogan, M. P. (1998), “The disappearance of technology: Toward anecologicalmodelofliteracy”,inReinking,D.,McKenna,M.C.,Labbo,L.D.andKieffer,R.D. (Eds.),HandbookofLiteracyandTechnology:Transformations inaPost-TypographicWorld,Florence,KY,Routledge,pp.269-281.Callon,M. (1986), “Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of thescallopsandthefishermenofStBrieuxBay”.InLaw,J.(Ed.),Power,ActionandBelief:ANewSociologyofKnowledge,London,Routledge,pp.196–233.Chu,S.K.W.,Tse,S.K.andChow,K. (2011), “Usingcollaborativeteachingand inquiryproject-basedlearningtohelpprimaryschoolstudentsdevelopinformationliteracyandinformationskills”.Library&InformationScienceResearch,Vol.33No.2,pp.132–143.


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