Alternate Report 1 for G23
Transcript Analysis of an Information Literacy Dialogue
by Matthew Scherder
My Transcript is at: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/459f2005/scherder/transcript.htm
Instructions for this report are at: 
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy23/g23-alternate-report1.htm

Introduction
The Generational Curriculum is a cumulative collection of student work on many topics of interest to education, science and lifestyle issues. From 1971 to 1991, the student reports from several courses Dr. James taught were bound by topic and year, and kept as a collection. In 1992 the generational curriculum went online and students started publishing all their reports on the World Wide Web.

The reports were written as assignments. Students followed instructions meticulously to insure scholarly value and professional standards of research and presentation. The purpose of my report is for me to learn more about other’s information literacy rather than just my own as I did in my own report 1.

Method
I was directed to find two volunteers so that I may observe their information literacy. I was to chose either children or adults and since I live on a college campus I chose two of the residents at the dorm that I work at. I told them that I needed them to sit at a computer for 10 minutes so that I could ask them questions about what they were doing on the computer. They were fine with it though they thought it was kind of a strange assignment. Then I explained to them about information literacy and told them a little about the class. They had no problem cooperating and were very easy to interview.

They were both 21 year old male students at the University of Hawaii. I went through the method of interviewing them and recording it on a recorder. The method would be very easy to replicate.

Analysis
(i) I selected my sample by walking out into my hall and asking two random residents of my dorm if I could interview them for ten minutes. They were just random residents but they both had a different approach to working on the computer.

The transcript is a writing of exactly what the students and I, the interviewer, stated in the recordings. The first student sat at my computer and did some online work while I asked him questions. The second student did some work and playing around on his computer while I interviewed him. I really did not have many problems with recording. It was hard when they wouldn’t speak up or mumbled but altogether it was pretty easy to transpose into typing.

(ii) My reaction when listening to the tape was one of amazement. I was amazed at how smoothly the whole thing went. I was amazed at how clear everything was and I felt that if I was to follow the tape I would know exactly how to replicate what they were doing on the computer. I was also amazed at how much they knew about computers especially the second student that I interviewed.

(iii) I did the transcript by numbering every new line that was said and putting initials in front of what the speaker said. I listened closely to the recording and when the student would say something I would number it and initial it “AD” for “adult”. I would then write exactly what they were saying. When I had a question or statement I would number it and initial it “IN” for “interviewer.”

There was not much in the way of problems when it came to the transcript because it was pretty much just writing exactly what was recorded. The only thing that was hard was writing exactly what they said for example instead of writing: “www.yahoo.com” I had to write “w-w-w dot yahoo dot com.”

(iv) When I analyzed the transcript I just read what they said word for word to notice any patterns in what they were saying. I also tried to count how many times they repeated something. The main point of my analyzing was to see how certain they sounded when they were doing a task.

I was able to analyze that the first student was not as sure about using the internet and computers as the second. I noticed that the first student used it as more of a social tool and a quick information finder. Whereas, I could tell tha the second student used the computer as a form of entertainment and that he spent a lot more hours on it and was more interested in the technology of it, than the idea of connecting to others through it.

Discussion
(i) By using what the students said and how they said it, in other words, by listening to how they described the task they were working on I could determine how capable they were of finding information on the computer and how comfortable they were with computers in general. I could tell that the second student had years of creating a deeper knowledge of computers, while to the first student the computer was just sort of there when he needed it for simple uses.

The computer is just one way to gather or receive information so I cannot tell who is more literate when it comes to information in general. When it comes to being literate about information from a computer I would say that the second student is more computer informational literate by the speed, accuracy, and command he had with is computer and receiving information from it.

(ii) Most people that I have read in researching information literacy claim that it is a rating of how capable one is of processing information, using it for a purpose, relaying it, and publishing it for others. When it comes to computers, information literacy is using the information found on a computer and the ability of one to use the computer.

(6) Advice to Future Generations
(i) Students in the future can improve on what I have done by pre-determining what they were looking for out of the interviews. I thought ahead about what I was looking to get out of this but at the same time I really just thought I would get the interviews and then analyze the interviews. So basically have a better plan about what you want to get out of your interviews in order to ask better questions.

(ii) I learned that some people can really relate to computers. I guess I already knew that a lot of people were better with computers and gathering and retaining information with and about computers than me. I didn’t know to what extent though, and now I know that there is a vast spread of how literate we are with information and computers. This is mainly because people use computers for different things than each other and spend different amounts of time on computers.

(iii) My research on what other people have learned and wrote about information literacy came from searching on Yahoo and Dogpile. I could find a lot of information on education and literacy and language and literacy but in order to find articles on information literacy, Yahoo was my best source. Another thing is that when you search also include the word “article” otherwise you do not find articles, you find web-pages.

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References

1. Langford, Linda. Information Literacy: A Clarification. School Libraries Worldwide, Volume 4, Number 1, 1998, 59-72. http://www.fno.org/oct98/clarify.html