Establishing information literacy principles as a foundation for cross-curricular scholarly investigation in England

Abstract

A fundamental problem with the educational system in the United Kingdom is that the subject-based emphasis of the curriculum leads to a separation in the teaching and learning of related skills. Using a framework previously prepared by the author, which positions Information Literacy within the wider domain of scholarly investigation, this paper employs a meta-synthesis approach to construct a meta-model that unites much of the material currently dispersed across England’s National Curriculum, and draws on the totality of the assembled content to outline a series of generic skills. The structure proposed here enables teachers to make connections between key aspects of what they cover in their own subjects and those addressed by colleagues concerned with other disciplines, and helps information professionals to recognize areas where their particular interventions will be most beneficial, in terms of promoting Information Literacy specifically and skills of more direct interest to subject practitioners.