eer500 begining

I have begun to delve into the world of educational research through EER. Research is something much touted for librarians by authors such as Todd, particularly in terms of evidence based research and how this can be utilised to promote and refine library practice.

The first assessment for this unit was due just on 2 weeks into the course - which was quite alarming given it usually takes me a few weeks to get into the swing of things. For this we had to locate a report about an issue then choose a research topic linking to the report, find some articles related to this and come up with research questions and statements on who these link and how the research would be of practical importance.

I began with an idea that I wanted to do something about either technology based library practices or about information literacy - both of which are of interest to me and are important facets of librarianship. I also wanted to pick something that might be of practical use to school librarians. In the end i chose information literacy and harking back to an earlier subject decided to look at the use of the ISP in info skills teaching. I think i spent far too long searching for the best articles I could find but one of them made me add to my research idea and that was to integrate the idea of project based learning with the teaching of information skills.

Here's hoping it goes well!


References

Todd, R.J. ‘Evidence based practice: the sustainable future for teacher-librarians’, Scan 21(1), 2002, pp 30-37.

Todd, R.J. ‘Evidence based practice II: getting into the action’, Scan 21(2), 2002, pp 34-41.