The purpose of this assignment was to document empirically what are the characteristics of my information behaviors. This included both my cognitive and affective information behaviors, errors, and facing a due date. This class and assignment has many focuses including information literacy, technology, psychology, and following instructions. This report has two main sections, the first being the notes and data section, which was done empirically, and the second section is the analysis of these notes. My thoughts while completing each task are documented and are open to interpretation. I feel throughout this report my knowledge of computers and information literacy were tested. My self-efficacy starting this report wasn’t very high. I felt that I lacked the necessary skills on computers that were needed to complete all the tasks. This lack of self-efficacy was made up for by my desire to do well in this class and graduate this year.

I am uncertain about taking two of these classes at the same time. They seem identical to me and I am unsure of the details of how they will be different. They look like identical classes with just different books and oral presentations. I wonder how the hell to create a homepage, what will it look like? I feel anger because everything is unclear and new. I wonder why we have to rate our mood before and after tasks. It makes me think, am I supposed to be angry to start, is this the purpose?

9/2/03

I start this class with much anxiety about my computer literacy. The first task is to sign up for a lab account and e-mail the professor. I don’t yet have a new computer but am in the processes of looking for one. My old computer doesn’t even have an internet connection and is just used for typing papers. Whenever I send e-mail of go online I have always used the computer lab. So for today, I go to the lab at Hamilton library. As I walk to the library, I already have a schema in my head of what this task will cover. I wonder if I will have any errors from the start.

9/3/03

I get my reply back that I did task one successfully and that I may fill out the post ratings. I feel relief for a moment but it is short lived as I know there is another looming on the horizon. This class seems like a long road of uncertainty with brief moments of horror and insanity. I immediately plan to follow all the steps to a tee. I reassure myself that I have all the information that I need to complete the class, I just need to follow the steps, how hard can it be? I think of the analogy of cooking and following the directions to make a pie. This eases my worried mind. I know from past experience that I don’t like uncertainty and I wonder if this will drive me to figure things out or the other way and to give up. A true test of will I think to myself.

Over the past years my pattern of avoidance with computers has finally caught up with me. It is time to face the devil head on. A battle, a true struggle, with only determination and perseverance to save us. I must put things into the proper perspective and know that others have taken this class and made it. Some people in this class are even taking it again after completing it last semester just on a different topic. I find myself trying to reassure my doubts.

9/11/03

I made an error when composing my research message by pushing the “preview” button . I pushed “back” and lost what I had written. Frustrated, I retyped up the research message and pushed “post” this time instead of “preview”. I made another error when I went back to check and see how it looked posted. The link to my website didn’t work. This didn’t seem like a fixable error so I left it not knowing why it didn’t work. My self confidence has sunk down a little after this because of the extra work of retyping and then not knowing why the link didn’t work. But I have chosen to cope and not worry about little details.

I am supposed to be exploring the general curriculum, but when ever I look at some of the previous generations work, I get frustrated because I have no idea how to do the details of designing these web pages, putting in the links, charts, etc. I wonder how I am supposed to know these things when the professor said that no prior computer knowledge is necessary for this course. Many of the past generations have nice looking web cites and I hope I can figure it out. I definitely have very low self efficacy about much of the computer related tasks in this course. I keep trying to remind myself when I start thinking negatively about this course and computers that all the instructions are laid out for me, and if all these other people can figure them out, so can I.

I have been looking closely at generation 16 homepages because I am doing the same topic of “my emotional spin cycle”, for the other class I am taking with Dr. James. These reports seem longer than many of the other generations and require sources and a works cited at the end of the report. The topic of “my emotional spin cycle” is an interesting one, and I am noticing my own negative emotions more often. I am using the methods laid out in the directions of generation 16 and trying to change my negative emotions into positive ones using the red and blue bridges.

9/15/03

Exploring the curriculum has given me a few problems so far. I had a hard time finding the locations of the home pages of past generations. First, I went to Dr. James home page, and selected the link to student generational reports, although this just takes you the list of class home pages and not to the students home pages. In order to get to these I had to select a generation, go to that homepage, and then look for the link to the students home pages, which is one more step than I anticipated. I kept finding the instructions of past reports, but not the actual student reports themselves. My cognitive strategy for looking at all the reports was to look at a new generation every time I got online until I had looked at all 18.

Unfortunately, I didn’t start with generation one because in the instructions I had remember reading if we were taking two classes from Dr. James, we were advised to check out generation 12 reports. Dr. James also said during a class session that generation 16 was very good, so right away I looked at these two generations and lost track of my systematic plan that I had established to start at the beginning and work my way to the present. So, I ended up jumping around the generations with no real strategy for making sure that I looked at every generation. I found the road rage reports of some of the earlier generations interesting. I am also feeling a bit overwhelmed at the number of reports published.

9/16/03

Well, I finally received confirmation that my lab account has been set up. The whole thing has been causing me a lot of grief because when I registered for my account they said about 1 or 2 days for confirmation. On the 6^th day with out a response I actually called the office and talked with them to make sure they had received my information. The technician said they were really backed up and that he couldn’t tell me for sure that it was received but not to worry. I am feeling angry at them and they seem unorganized. I am not even sure why we need a lab account if we never go to the lab anyways for this class. Dr. James said in class that it took him about two weeks for a response and I just finally got mine now about two weeks later. Seems like the guys in ICS might be overestimating their abilities by just a little bit, maybe they should say how long it really takes so people don’t stress when it takes five times as long as they say it does.

9/20/03

I have also bought a new computer, which I thought might be worth mentioning. I have always used Macs and I bought a PC, so I am learning lately about working on a PC. Thus far, all of my notes have been hand written, and finally I am typing everything up.

I am supposed to created a web page. I am lost and have spent about 5 hours looking at web page design models online. I am not sure also how FTP works and if I will have to pay for the software or if there is a free way to get it. I have downloaded a free 30 day trial, but have yet to figure out how to run the program. I have downloaded some FTP tutorials off the internet. One of these was provided by Dr. James and the other I found online. They are long and in computer lingo and I can’t really follow them. I feel like I need someone to show me the basics of how to do it or I may never learn.

10/14/03

Well, we received and extension on our due date for this task. It has been moved to 10/24/03, which gives us another week. I feel stressed and greatly appreciate the extra time. It is taking me much longer than I had anticipated to understand actually uploading my information and how to put in my links to all of the necessary places. I am trying to divide my time so I am spending about half working on web page design and figuring out how to upload and put in links. The other part is writing the report and organizing my notes. I am a little frustrated at the vagueness of the instructions and that it leaves out all the computer details for us to figure out. I have successfully made my class file where I am supposed to download my stuff to, but I haven’t figured out how to transfer my report 1 and my web page to this online folder.

Making the file was easy and involved following the instructions for FTP uploading given in the instructions. I had to enter the host address and password. I open up the FTP program, that I downloaded for a free 30 day trial, and search the left side, with all the available folders to transfer. My file where I am keeping all the work for this class is no where to be found. I eventually think that maybe I can drag the icon of what folder I want to send using FTP. So I drag, my pre and post ratings for task one which I need to upload. I find that I can successfully place the correct file into FTP by dragging the file off my hard drive and into the FTP. I am not sure if this is the best way, but it is the only way that I can think to do it.

So with this method, I upload all the pre and post ratings I have filled out. I have finally figured out that I make the webpage on Microsoft Word or a similar program. I tried to download some free backgrounds but was unable to find out how to apply them to my Word program. I made the homepage and put links into Dr. James homepage and also to the class homepage for instructions to the reports. I am not sure how to download pictures and graphics but will continue to look online for some. I have also successfully made a link from my homepage to my report one. I had a little trouble when I was making the table of the raw data of my pre and post ratings. I had to do it a few times with a few different tables to make everything fit in the table correctly. I have placed the questions for the tables above each one.

10/21/03

I am adding some color to my report but it has been a little hard because not all the colors show up very well and I have been forced to stick with the ones that are readable. My link to task four pre and post ratings was not working and it turns out that I had typed the address wrong when I put in the link for it. I left out the word ratings which I didn’t need in the first three task links. So, my links all work but now I am finding that my tables are not centered when viewed as a web page. I view them in the word program and they are centered, but not when viewed online.

I am feeling a sense of relief today as I feel I am finally figuring out how to do the basics of FTP and uploading. The progress reassures me that I can accomplish this task even if it is challenging me and taking up much of my time. I know that I can be negative when I don’t know how to do something and many of the times I will give up if I am not good at something right away. This task has forced me to see it through to the end when I feel like giving up. I feel that if I wasn’t so close to graduating that I might have dropped this class. But if I drop any classes it will mess up my plans to graduate in the spring so I am forced to see my frustration to the end.

For our pre-ratings we answered these 9 questions on a Likert Scale numbered 1-10, with 10 always representing positive agreement or highly likely. (To see the full pre and post ratings for all tasks please use links)

1)What kind of mood are you in?

2)How important is it for you to succeed in this task?

3)How much difficulty do you expect in performing this task?

4)How upset would you be if you did not succeed at this task?

5)How sure are you that you will succeed in this task?

6)How likely is it that you will become good at this kind of task?

7)How motivated are you to keep on trying at this particular task until you succeed?

8)Computers will make it easier for me to perform this task?

Pre-Ratings Table

For our post-ratings we answered these 9 questions using a Likert Scale numbered 1-10, with 10 always representing the most likely or highly in agreement. (To view full pre and post ratings please use the links provided in this report.)

1)What kind of mood are you in?

2)How important is it to you that you’ve succeed in accomplishing this task?

3)How much difficulty did you experience in performing this task?

4)How upset would you have been if you had not succeed in this task?

5)How sure are you that you will succeed in new but similar tasks in the future?

6)How likely is it that you will become good at this kind of task?

7)How motivated were you to keep on trying at this task until you succeeded?

8)Computers made it easier for me to perform this task?

9)How much effort did this task take?

I try to explain my errors, feelings, emotions, strategies, but am at a loss to find out how they became me. My own socialization has been a silent, covert, and altogether unknown process through which I now look at through the scientific eyes of psychology.

“There are three things extremely hard, Steel, a Diamond, and to know one’s self.” -Benjamin Franklin

My self-efficacy and overall self confidence seemed to be very high for the first three tasks and low for the fourth task. I seemed to identify my weakness early and knew that the first few tasks wouldn’t be hard but the uploading would give me trouble. I feel my self efficacy may have been lower than others because I was doing all this work on a new computer I had no experience with.

“No one can see his own errors.” Psalms 19:12

Three types of errors: fixable vs. unfixable, fatal vs. nonfatal, unidentifiable or unknown. I am sure that many of my errors went unnoticed, but I did make a few, which are documented in detail in the notes section of this report. All of my errors that I found were in the category of fixable vs. unfixable. Only a few were unfixable, like when I lost my weekly research posting and had to write it over again, or typing an address wrong. I know that computers don’t make errors and the ones I recognize I take responsibility for. When I made an error I tried not to feel angry and instead to control my emotions.

Many of the situations I faced were very challenging like figuring out link which came in a moment of insight when I found the icon at the top of the page which allows you to make a link. All of the sudden things become easier. These type of errors I feel were expected from the beginning since I knew I had a limited knowledge with computers. Is this a whole different category of errors called “expected errors”? This was actually the most frustrating because I could see them coming from the first time I read the syllabus. I think that I managed to cope well with these challenging situations and my main method for coping with my errors was to devote huge amounts of time into figuring out the computer details and the cause of my errors.

“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike and yet it is the most precious thing we have.” -Albert Einstein

When looking over the general curriculum I found myself feeling a variety of emotions from overwhelmed to interested to frustrated. Much of what I saw angered me because I knew that I was going to have to figure out how to do all of this on my own and it would be a lot of work. I figure that anger is a good emotion because for me it provided the proper ambition in the midst of my apathy. Most of the reports that I looked at were about driving, or the emotional spin cycle. They seemed to improve over the generations in terms of overall quality. I assume as people became more knowledgeable about computers and with an increase in technology, the reports reflected this also.

I feel that this approach to learning about information literacy forces students to look directly at themselves and see patterns of behaviors, rather than just read about information literacy. I think it is a good approach for psychology majors who want to increase their ability to understand where their information behaviors form and to observe them on a personal level. I experience being generation 19 by understanding this topic has been studied in psychology by many other previous students, so I draw the conclusion it can be useful. I see the future of the generational curriculum being one who experiences less and less frustrations due to computer illiteracy. The advice I would give to future generations is to allow yourself lots of time and don’t procrastinate. Getting started early will allow for many revisions and new ideas to emerge. Advice I can offer for analyzing this report is to not forget to use the links to the pre and post ratings for each task, as this information was used to draw upon for the conclusions in this report.

I didn’t experience any discomfort with facing a due date until task 4 was due and then we received an extra week which helped to alleviate any real time constraints. The only real worry I had with a due date was when I was yet to figure out FTP and the uploading process. This worried me a great deal and I spent many hours reading FTP tutorials and links tutorials. Once I was able to master this process facing a due date was a much easier thought. I feel like I felt a great amount of stress, but was able to cope well by spending lots of time working on my computer skills. When I became frustrated I tried to breath deep and take a break and sometimes I would think of something. I always have hated the feeling of uncertainty and I tried to let that uncertain feeling turn into determination rather than frustration. So, in this regards I tried my best to have high self efficacy and self confidence knowing that this can help my overall attitude and outcome regarding this class.

My Information behavior is improving because I am realizing all the information we need is out there for us to access it if we know where to look. Time and determination helped me to learn more about computer systems although I still feel I am a novice. I have learned that looking for information when you aren’t sure where to look can be frustrating and can lead to many dead ends. I would say my biggest waste of time error I made was looking at how to make a web page when all along I could have made one using Microsoft Word. My information behavior is changing as I am learning more about the feelings of frustration I feel when I can’t figure something out the first time.

Many of the times I was thinking about my information behavior and trying to explain it with cognitive psychology. I remembered about retrieval strategies and how we reach back into our minds to remember where certain information is located using our long term memory. When I think of a answer to a question I first make a plan about how to search long term memory. If I was trying to recall 50 states I could organize my search by geographic location or alphabetically. Similarly, searching for information for this course I could think first of where I last saw the information or how to find it if it was unknown. This all happens in a matter of seconds in my mind as I follow a kind of mental map to process information.

Often times I found myself struggling to remember a piece of information and suddenly it popped into my mind. I felt like progress was made in just that one instant and I feel sudden relief. I found myself getting much faster at certain skills that took a lot of time to master in the beginning like FTP. I started to develop patterns or maps of the steps and what I needed to do for each individual bit of information. This was a good feeling to know that I’m improving.

As far as dealing with computer systems in the future I realize they are an increasing necessity in our lives, and I know I can only get better at using them. I will be even more involved with computers in the next few years as I continue my education. I want to get better using power point, and maybe take some courses online. I have found myself going online to search for much new information now that I have this new computer with the capabilities. I hope that improving my information processing now will help me in the future.