This document summarizes a research paper about how access to information and information literacy can support young people's educational transitions. It finds that disadvantaged students have less access to information resources and face barriers in navigating complex information to make choices about education and careers. School and academic libraries can help by providing access to resources, study space, digital literacy training, and partnering with outreach programs to develop students' information evaluation skills. Librarians need to be aware that algorithms and career guidance tools may unintentionally reinforce inequities. Overall, the document argues that improving information literacy is important to address inequality in educational opportunities.

1. From Secondary Education to Beyond:
Information Literacy to Support
Young People’s Educational Transitions
Dr Lauren Smith, Research Associate,
Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Strathclyde
@walkyouhome

2. Overview
• Background:
Inequality of opportunity
• Context:
Reasons for inequality
• Information
The role of information
• Interventions
Ideas for libraries
Image CC Duncan C

3. Theoretical lens: capabilities
• Identify and evaluate social structures and institutional conditions
that enable different individuals to make choices about what they
want to be and do
• Relationship between resources and ability of individuals to
convert these into valued capabilities and make choices that
influence outcomes
• Freedom of individual agency is qualified and constrained by
social, political and economic factors and opportunities
(Wilson-Strydom 2011)

4. BACKGROUND
Inequality in access to university

5. Inequitable access to
education and employment
• Students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to
enter higher education
• Differences in earnings associated with a higher education qualification
contribute to a cycle of income inequality
• HE systems can function as both engines of social mobility and
inequality
• 86% of Scottish medical students have parents from the highest-ranked
professions, the largest proportion of the four UK nations (Steven et al.
2016)

6. “Young people negotiating their
transitions to adulthood,
independence and work are faced
with unprecedented levels of choice
and opportunity, but also far greater
levels of uncertainty and risk.”
(Kahn, Abdo et al., 2011)
Information in transition
CC0

7. Inequitable transitions
• Disadvantaged young people are using
ICTs more to engage in employment
related activities
• They are less likely than their peers to
succeed, even partially, through this
medium (46% compared to 65% of their
employed peers)
(Helsper and Smirnova 2016)
CC Marina Noordegraaf

8. CONTEXT
Barriers to accessing higher education and
factors influencing post-school choices

9. Cuts and resource shortages
• Connexions
• AimHigher
• Careers education and guidance cuts in schools
• 729 teaching posts vacant across primary and secondary schools in Scotland in
September 2016
• A third of specialist school library staff in Scotland have been cut since 2010
• Cuts in schools mean everyone is under pressure – including librarians

10. Capital
Economic
CulturalSocial
Several factors hinder access to HE for students from
low income households in Scotland. These include:
• Low academic attainment;
• Grade-based admissions;
• Requirements for personal statements and
interviews;
• The cost of going to university;
• Concerns about the perceived costs of university and
the burden of debt;
• Family understanding of HE and options;
• Teacher knowledge and understanding of HE;
• Confidence levels and fears of ‘not fitting in’;
• Subject choices made at school.

11. Confidence
• To be able to live independently
• To move away from home
• To make the right choices about subjects
• To navigate funding options and affordability

12. “There is no road
map…where you can type
in, "I have higher English,
National 5 Maths." This is
where I want to go. There
is no way of easily
navigating a route from
your starting point.”
CC davidatkinson89

13. “University websites can be a
really baffling place for them to
access, really baffling. Even as an
adult…there’s no continuity
across websites. Things are laid
out in language which is – to be
frank – shocking for someone to
be able to understand it.”
CC Todd Dailey

14. “The characters are on the screen,
but to work out what it actually
means requires a flow chart, a
diagram and a Ouija board. It’s
ridiculous. So kids come up and say,
“What does this mean?” and I’m,
“Oh, come on, let’s have a look…no,
actually what does that mean?”
CC Gabriel Molina

15. “I think information again, is the big
one. Also knowing how to assess
that information, this is something
that we've put a bit of emphasis on is
that, students are able to assess the
information that they're given and to
know how to deal with that…Which
is…to do with schools and critical
thinking and things like that.”
CC Tony Cheng

16. “There are kids
without computers at
home.”
Digital access and
literacy at home
67% of young people have someone
available to help them out if they need
support with ICT related issues, but
less than a quarter have asked for that
help.
(Hesper and Smirnova 2016)
CC EFF Photos

17. How can we address the problem?
Recommendations from our research
1) Increase ring-fenced university places
2) Encourage HEIs to increase access
3) Address the attainment gap
4) Increase access to scholarships and grants
5) Improve articulation
6) Examine the effectiveness of contextual admissions
Sosu et al. (2016)
7) Provide both school-wide and targeted
outreach
8) Select pupils for inclusion in outreach
appropriately
9) Improve teacher knowledge of HE
10) Ensure guidance is impartial
11) Develop parity of outcome for pupils involved
in SHEP
12) Streamline the widening access landscape

18. Provide both school-wide and targeted
outreach
• Targeted approach to outreach
• Complemented with school-wide
outreach and guidance
• Schemes may act as a motivator for
academic attainment and
aspirational post-school plans
CC0

19. Improve teacher knowledge
Teachers play an
important role in pupils’
decision-making. It is
important for teachers to
be knowledgeable about
both the HE application
process and the different
pathways available.
CC0

20. Ensure guidance is impartial
Young people must be able to make optimum choices based
on their own interests with the support of impartial guidance.

21. Existing and emerging support
• Information
• Websites
• Outreach
• Intergenerational mentoring
• Summer schools
• Parents’ evenings
General trend in providing more
information
Lack of focus on how to use information
and structural barriers to converting
information into action

22. “The schemes that exist to support
disadvantaged young people do not
explicitly focus on
differing information literacy capacities
of young people and their families, which
may influence information behaviour and
decision-making.”
(Connor et al., 2001)

23. INFORMATION
Relevance of access to information and information literacy

24. What role does information play?
• Not having access to information and technology at home
• Not knowing where to go for useful information
• Not being able to tell ‘good’ information from ‘bad’
• Not being able to tell when information is biased
• Not knowing how to make decisions based on information

25. Information sources
• Open days
• Websites
• Parents
• Friends
• Teachers
• League tables
• News items
• Careers advisors
• University visits
CC Eilidh McAuley

26. “I think the websites are quite difficult to
navigate through, especially St Andrews,
Dundee, Edinburgh: they’ve got a similar
layout on their websites, and it’s hard to
find information, and I think that puts off
people. So when you’re applying and you’re
you’re doing your research, you’re like, “I
can’t even work out the website, so how
I going to work out how to be a student
that university?””
Navigating and understanding online
information
CC PDPics

27. INTERVENTIONS
How can school and academic libraries support educational transitions?

28. Libraries can provide
access to resources
“Students from low income households may not be able to buy
the same sort of supportive resources. A good number of
families from my school could barely put enough food on the
table.”

29. Libraries can provide study space
“Some students from low income
households live in ‘a crowded flat,
maybe sharing a bedroom with two
brothers and a sister. They've got
nowhere to do homework and the
local libraries are all shut down.”
“Students need help and support -
‘space where they can go and do
their homework in peace.”
CC0

30. Librarians can be
role models and mentors
• Students talked about how they valued teachers who
encouraged them to go further and do more
• Influence of teachers who saw students’ potential in certain
subjects
• Librarians can encourage young people to do well and
identify their own proficiencies
• Effort and commitment of teachers required to…send
positive signals (Furlong 2005)
• Impact of encouragement is greatest for students in the
middle third of academic achievement and those with
lower levels of parental education (Alcott 2017)

31. Librarians could provide
digital literacy support
"Digital literacy is the ability to use information and
communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and
communicate information, requiring both cognitive and
technical skills."

32. Librarians need critical information literacy
• Librarians need to apply critical information literacy to the
technology they encourage students to use
• Some software uses data to tell teenagers which subjects they
should study
• Need to understand that systems are biased (citations) –
gender and race
• If this technology is going to be used we need to teach
students to be critical users of the tools
• Students need help to develop the agency to challenge
systems that reinforce stereotypes and inequity
Image CC Robin Zebrowsky

33. Algorithms are not neutral
• Mann and O’Neill (2016) Hiring Algorithms
Are Not Neutral, Harvard Business Review
• Sydell (2016) Can Computers Be Racist? The
Human-Like Bias Of Algorithms, NPR
“Google’s online advertising
system…showed an ad for high-
income jobs to men much more
often than it showed the ad to
women” Miller (2015) When
Algorithms Discriminate, New York
Times
Angela Pashia, LILAC 2017

34. Librarians could support information
literacy and evaluation
• Prospectuses: large professional
university marketing
departments, often supported
by specialist advertising
agencies
(Bok, 2003)
• Career choice personality tests:
based on Myers-Briggs, which
might be a bit bunk and
reproduce under-
representation and a lack of
diversity in different fields
Icould.com

35. Partnering with
widening access schemes
• Campus visits
• Activity days
• Information literacy projects
embedded in school curriculum
• Digital literacy workshops
• Supporting intergenerational
mentoring schemes
• Becoming a mentor
CC Nick Youngson

36. Partnering with university outreach
projects: Strathclyde example
• Led by Dr David Thomson in Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences
• S2 pupils (12-13 years old) conducted an online research project to find information
about the effect of substance abuse on the brain
• Websites identified by the academic staff and PhD students, approved by teacher
• Project continued with teacher and pupils in lesson time
• Divided sources into three categories: scientific data, propaganda and opinion
• Produced poster to share findings with guidance on scientific posters
• This information literacy exercise could be developed into an activity pack for rolling
out across other schools – teachers and school librarians

37. SHARING BEST PRACTICE AND EXPERIENCES
What has worked at your institution? What do you need to make it work?

38. References and useful links
Buchanan, S., & Tuckerman, L. (2016). The information behaviours of disadvantaged and disengaged adolescents. Journal of Documentation, 72(3), 527–548.
https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/MRR-09-2015-0216
Connaway, L. S., Dickey, T. J., & Radford, M. L. (2011). “If it is too inconvenient I’m not going after it:” Convenience as a critical factor in information-seeking
behaviors. Library and Information Science Research, 33(3), 179–190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2010.12.002
Connor, H. (2001). Deciding for or against participation in higher education. Higher Education Quarterly, 55(2), 204–224
Furlong, A. (2005) Cultural dimensions of decisions about educational participation among 14‐ to 19‐year‐olds: the parts that Tomlinson doesn't reach. Journal
of Education Policy, 20:3, 379-389, DOI: 10.1080/02680930500117362
Greenbank, P. (2011). Improving the process of career decision making: an action research approach. Education & Training, 53(4), 252–266.
https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00400911111138433
Greenbank, P., & Hepworth, S. (2008). Improving the career decision-making behaviour of working class students. Journal of European Industrial Training,
32(7), 492–509. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/03090590810899801
Helsper, E. J., & Smirnova, S. (2016). Slipping Through the Net: Are disadvantaged young people being left further behind in the digital era? Princes Trust,
London. https://www.princes-trust.org.uk/Document_Slipping-Through-The-Net-report-2016.pdf
Julien, H. (1999). Barriers to Adolescents’ Information Seeking for Decision Making, 50(12015), 38–48. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(1999)50
Kahn, L., Abdo, M. et al. (2011). The way to work: Young people speak out on transitions to employment. London: The Young Foundation
Malone, H. J. (2013). The Search Stage: When, Where, and What Information Do Urban Public High School Students Gather about College. Journal of School
Counseling, 11(13). https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1034742&site=ehost-live
Sosu, E. M., Smith, L. N., McKendry, S., Santoro, N. & Ellis, S. (2016). “Widening Access to Higher Education for Students from Economically Disadvantaged
Backgrounds: What Works and Why?” bit.ly/wideningaccess

39. Thank You
lauren.n.smith@strath.ac.uk
@walkyouhome