Papers by Rebecca Reynolds
School Libraries Worldwide, 2007
The American Association of School Librarians' Standards for the 21stCentury Learner make cle... more The American Association of School Librarians' Standards for the 21stCentury Learner make clear that information skills alone are not sufficient for student success; students must also value those skills, use them in a productive and responsible manner, and have the motivational "dispositions in action" to support successful research and independent lifelong learning. Self-determination theory highlights perceived competence and autonomy as two basic psychological needs that support intrinsically-motivated behavior. This study investigates the extent to which context factors inherent to the school library influence students' perceived competence in the domain of information skills (PCIS), and their intrinsic motivation for research (IMR).
School Libraries Worldwide, 2001
Critical to inquiry-based learning is information literacy. Educators can enhance students' e... more Critical to inquiry-based learning is information literacy. Educators can enhance students' experiences during the inquiry process if they are aware of the skill areas in which students either have or lack confidence. This article describes the development and psychometric properties of the Perceived Competence in Information Skills (PCIS) measure. Educators can use the measure to support student inquiry by identifying and addressing gaps in student confidence. The measure is freely available through Syracuse University's Center for Digital Literacy.
Lessons Learned during Research and Development of Globaloria, 2006–2017
In this short summary brief, we discuss instructional design affordances that have contributed to... more In this short summary brief, we discuss instructional design affordances that have contributed to the development of Globaloria and its successes, awards, and ultimate acquisition. We propose that as a constructionist e-learning platform for CS education in the US school system, Globaloria’s path may offer both technological and conceptual innovations for designers and inventors whose projects are also inspired by constructionism and who may be considering the importance of expansion, replication, and scale in their next steps.
This paper explores contributors to student outcomes within a five-year pilot program of game des... more This paper explores contributors to student outcomes within a five-year pilot program of game design learning being conducted with middle school, high school, and community college students throughout the state of WV. In order to evaluate student engagement and learning in the program, researchers developed a content analysis evaluation framework to analyze the artifacts of students’ project-based learning. Evaluating the extent of student learning and the underlying constructs supporting outcomes will help us better understand the ways in which this discovery-based program of learning might or might not be effective. Findings indicate that among 20 pilot locations, the highest mean game evaluation value at a school was 47 (with 61 being the highest possible value and 16 being the lowest). The lowest mean value for a school was 18.57. Variation appears present across pilot locations, which may be affirmed through future tests of relationship that will explore the variable of pilot l...
Information and Learning Sciences, 2020
Purpose Personal knowledge management (KM) lends new emphasis to ways through which individual kn... more Purpose Personal knowledge management (KM) lends new emphasis to ways through which individual knowledge workers engage with knowledge in organizational contexts. This paper aims to go beyond an organizational approach to KM to examine key personal KM and knowledge building (KB) practices among adult professionals. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents a summary of the findings from interviews with 58 consultants from 17 managing consulting firms. Participants were selected based on their knowledge-intensive roles and their willingness to share information about their knowledge practices. Data analysis was inductive and revealed multiple personal KM activities common among research participants, and the way these are supported by informal ties and various technologies. Findings This work highlights ways in which “shadow information technology” undergirds personal knowledge infrastructures and supports KM and KB practices in the context of management consulting firms. The r...
Sins of omission: Critical informatics perspectives on privacy in e‐learning systems in higher education
Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2021
The COVID‐19 pandemic emptied classrooms across the globe and pushed administrators, students, ed... more The COVID‐19 pandemic emptied classrooms across the globe and pushed administrators, students, educators, and parents into an uneasy alliance with online learning systems already committing serious privacy and intellectual property violations, and actively promoted the precarity of educational labor. In this article, we use methods and theories derived from critical informatics to examine Rutgers University's deployment of seven online learning platforms commonly used in higher education to uncover five themes that result from the deployment of corporate learning platforms. We conclude by suggesting ways ahead to meaningfully address the structural power and vulnerabilities extended by higher education's use of these platforms.
Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2020
Information and Learning Sciences, 2019
PurposeMany of today’s information and technology systems and environments facilitate inquiry, le... more PurposeMany of today’s information and technology systems and environments facilitate inquiry, learning, consciousness-raising and knowledge-building. Such platforms include e-learning systems which have learning, education and/or training as explicit goals or objectives. They also include search engines, social media platforms, video-sharing platforms, and knowledge sharing environments deployed for work, leisure, inquiry, and personal and professional productivity. The new journal,Information and Learning Sciences, aims to advance our understanding of human inquiry, learning and knowledge-building across such information, e-learning, and socio-technical system contexts.Design/methodology/approachThis article introduces the journal at its launch under new editorship in January, 2019. The article, authored by the journal co-editors and all associate editors, explores the lineage of scholarly undertakings that have contributed to the journal's new scope and mission, which include...
Relationships among tasks, collaborative inquiry processes, inquiry resolutions, and knowledge outcomes in adolescents during guided discovery-based game design in school
Journal of Information Science, 2016
This research study investigates US middle school students’ collaborative information-seeking, se... more This research study investigates US middle school students’ collaborative information-seeking, sense-making and knowledge-building practices in a guided discovery-based programme of game design learning in which students and their teachers participate in a formal, in-school class daily, for credit and a grade for an entire year. The learning is supported by information affordances including a wiki learning management system (LMS) housing the curriculum, organized design activities, social media features, tutorials and informational assignments. Students engage in a Constructionist blended learning setting in their classroom, and work collaboratively in teams on game design. The study draws on qualitative video data from six team cases using a coding scheme of categories for the concepts of task, collaborative information seeking (CIS) Modality, and inquiry resolution outcomes. The study also considers linkages between processes and learning outcomes. Variation in engagement across t...
Defining, designing for, and measuring “social constructivist digital literacy” development in learners: a proposed framework
Educational Technology Research and Development, 2016
This paper offers a newly conceptualized modular framework for digital literacy that defines this... more This paper offers a newly conceptualized modular framework for digital literacy that defines this concept as a task-driven “social constructivist digital literacy,” comprising 6 practice domains grounded in Constructionism and social constructivism: Create, Manage, Publish, Socialize, Research, Surf. The framework articulates possible instructional design and research operationalizations for the concept, based upon a coordinated set of activities centering on student game design. The paper then reports on results of an implementation study involving game design drawing upon the framework, addressing ways in which the practice domains inter-operate when the specified instruction is offered as a coordinated intervention. The study reports change in student engagement in activities within each of the framework’s practice domain, as a result of participating in a comprehensive game design learning program, and reports ways in which change in activities at school contribute to change in activities at home, when no homework is required, suggesting transfer. Findings indicate that the 6 practice domains factor and inter-correlate, and that for several practice domains, change in engagement at school correlates to change in at-home engagement. The theoretical perspectives underscoring the definition and conceptualization presented are supported by the empirical findings. Researchers may draw upon this study’s framework approach, and specific definition for social constructivist digital literacy, in building towards a more coordinated agenda of comparative research on this concept.
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2016
(U)nderstanding plagiarism, learning about (P)araphrasing and related skills, generating proper (... more (U)nderstanding plagiarism, learning about (P)araphrasing and related skills, generating proper (C)itations with an online citation tool and doing originality (C)heck with an online tool (UPCC) is a pedagogy developed by Chu and his colleagues (2014, 2015) to help students avoid plagiarism. The UPCC pedagogy incorporates teaching the ethical use of information, an important facet of information literacy, into inquiry project-based learning (PjBL), a pedagogical approach that demands students to demonstrate high order information literacy. This study, adopting a mixed-methods design, evaluates the effectiveness of UPCC by comparing the plagiarism behavior of two cohorts of junior secondary students in their PjBL projects with and without the implementation of the pedagogy. In addition, upon the completion of their projects, the 2015 cohort completed a survey that evaluates their knowledge of plagiarism, and assesses the extent to which they endorse the helpfulness of the UPCC in domains including instructional support; understanding plagiarism; paraphrasing, synthesizing and summarizing; generating appropriate citations; and originality self-check. Students and teachers also participated in focus group interviews to further elaborate on their perceptions on the UPCC pedagogy. A trend in reduced plagiarism behavior was observed after the implementation of UPCC, and students expressed a generally positive perception on UPCC as an effective anti-plagiarism pedagogy. Quantitative and qualitative data showed that students who had better knowledge of plagiarism held a significantly more positive perception on the effectiveness of UPCC than those who showed poorer understanding of plagiarism. This may indicate that further refinement of UPCC is needed to cater for learner diversity and enhance students' motivation.
iConference 2016 Proceedings
This research study investigates middle school and high school students' use of a wiki-based lear... more This research study investigates middle school and high school students' use of a wiki-based learning management system as a coordinating representation in the context of their guided discovery-based game design work. The study aims to (a) consider/validate the quality of Google Analytics page read data as a source of insight for research; (b) describe activity patterns; (c) investigate possible relationships between measured activity patterns and student learning outcomes; and (d) consider implications for practice, such as enhanced teacher training, program improvements, and even development of LMS information system diagnostic tools. Findings indicate positive relationships between resource uses and game quality outcome scores (a measure of student knowledge-building), across as several LMS curriculum page types including social media pages (Profile pages and Team pages) and information resource pages (Intro, Unit 3, and Actionscript tutorials). The research supports effectiveness of guided discovery-based learning in supporting knowledge-building, and holds local pragmatic implications for optimization of the e-learning system under investigation, as well as methodological and theoretical implications for the bridging fields of information and learning sciences.
Understanding and Measuring Student Inquiry and Resource Use Processes, and their Contribution to Outcomes, in "Guided Discovery-Based" Learning
Rebecca Reynolds Rutgers University School of Communication & Information 4 Huntington St., N... more Rebecca Reynolds Rutgers University School of Communication & Information 4 Huntington St., New Brunswick, NJ [email protected] ABSTRACT This research study investigates middle school and high school students’ use of a wiki-based e-learning platform as a coordinating representation in the context of their guided discovery-based game design work. The study aims to (a) consider/validate the quality of wiki trace data and Google Analytics page read data as a source of insight for research; (b) describe activity patterns; (c) investigate possible relationships between measured activity patterns and student learning outcomes; (d) consider implications for practice, such as enhanced teacher training, program improvements, and even development of LMS information system diagnostic tools. The research holds local pragmatic implications for optimization of the e-learning system under investigation, as well as methodological and design implications for the bridging fields of information and learning sciences.
Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2009
This article reports on the contributions of perceived competence in information and digital skil... more This article reports on the contributions of perceived competence in information and digital skills, perceived competence in reading, and the disposition to read for enjoyment to actual performance in an information and digital literacy knowledge and skills test among 1272 eighth grade students in 20 states who participated in the study. The data support the importance of affective correlates to information sikills and digital technology knowledge, including the disposition to read for enjoyment, which is emphasized in the new American Association for School Librarian's (AASL) Standards for the 21st Century Learner. The study is grounded in Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and is part of a larger investigation on digital and information literacy and 21st Century dispositions for learning. Implications for curriculum design are discussed. However, these two levels can be seen to apply also to information uses more broadly (such as learners' use of traditional library media and resources-books, references, etc.), in that access to resources such as those in school libraries does not guarantee use or successful performance. Student needs and the role of the librarian and other environmental supports is key. Self-determination theory. This study is grounded in Self-Determination Theory (SDT), a macrotheory of human motivation and development, which holds that need for competence (to be effective), autonomy (to experience choice and endorsement of one's actions), and relatedness (to feel connected to others, loved, and cared for) are important motivators of human behavior, are innate needs, and are essential to psychological growth and well-being (Deci, E. & Ryan, R., 2000; Deci & Ryan, 2008). An excellent review of studies that have used SDT in education can be found in Guay, Ratelle & Chanal (2008). The needs described by SDT are central to motivation-both its type (autonomous vs. controlled) and amount (strength). For example, a student may persist in studying for an exam (a motivated behavior) because of an inherent need for competence, and may feel autonomous in taking the responsibility to do so. Further, the needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness can be supported or thwarted by the learning environment. To put this in the context of the school library, an educator who incorporates strategies for building
Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2010
Agenda-Setting the Internet? Political News Blog and Newspaper Coverage of Candidates in the 2004 Presidential Election
Using Learning Management System Page Read Data to Detect Patterns of Engagement in Students’ Guided “Discovery-Based” Learning: Opportunities and Challenges
Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration - WikiSym '09, 2009
Constructionist-learning researchers have long emphasized the epistemological value of programmin... more Constructionist-learning researchers have long emphasized the epistemological value of programming games for learning and cognition. This study reports student experiences in a program of game design and Web 2.0 learning offered to disadvantaged West Virginia middle, high school and community college students. Specifically, the poster presents findings on the extent of student use of the Wiki for project management, teamwork and selfpresentation of game design attributes, comparing results across 13 school pilot locations. Also presented are students' selfreported recommendations for possible improvements to the wiki. Results indicate that some locations were more active in their wiki use; the poster addresses location-specific implementation context factors that may have played a role in the variant results.
Learning, Media and Technology, 2013
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or s... more This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. Formal and informal context factors as contributors to student engagement in a guided discovery-based program of game design learning
Educational Technology Research and Development, 2011
This implementation study explores middle school, high school and community college student exper... more This implementation study explores middle school, high school and community college student experiences in Globaloria, an educational pilot program of game design offered in schools within the U.S. state of West Virginia, supported by a non-profit organization based in New York City called the World Wide Workshop Foundation. This study reports on student engagement, meaning making and critique of the program, in their own words. The study's data source was a mid-program student feedback survey implemented in Pilot Year 2 (2008/2009) of the 5 year design-based research initiative, in which the researchers posed a set of open-ended questions in an online survey questionnaire answered by 199 students. Responses were analyzed using inductive textual analysis. While the initial purpose for data collection was to elicit actionable program improvements as part of a design-based research process, several themes emergent in the data tie into recent debates in the education literature around discovery-based learning. In this paper, we draw linkages from the categories of findings that emerged in student feedback to this literature, and identify new scholarly research questions that can be addressed in the ongoing pilot, the investigation of which might contribute new empirical insights related to recent critiques of discovery based learning, self-determination theory, and the productive failure phenomenon.