What Good Information Feels Like: Evaluation in the Context of Expertise
Type of Presentation
Individual paper/presentation (20 minute presentation)
Target Audience
Other
Location
Room 1220 B
Proposal
See presentation description.
Short Description
This presentation seeks to apply Hubert Dreyfus’ phenomenological theory of skill acquisition to the area of information evaluation. Briefly stated, Dreyfus sees expertise as characterized by an “immediate intuitive...response” to situations that require decisions or actions of one sort or another. One becomes an expert by passing through a number of earlier stages that rely upon rules, checklists, or other criteria that must be kept in mind during the practice of the skill. In skill acquistion, the ultimate end in view is to arrive at a point where such mechanical reflection is unnecessary, where decision making within the skill domain becomes “non-cognitive,” second nature. Translated to the area of information evaluation, we might say that expertise gives one a “feel” for what’s useful or less useful information. I will argue for the importance of providing students with a metacognitive understanding of what it means and, more importantly, what it feels like to be an “expert” evaluator of information in order to see the phase of relying on checklists as one step in a process rather than as an end in itself.
Keywords
Source evaluation, Hubert Dreyfus, Expertise
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Recommended Citation
Farrell, Robert, "What Good Information Feels Like: Evaluation in the Context of Expertise" (2010). Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy. 72.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gaintlit/2010/2010/72
What Good Information Feels Like: Evaluation in the Context of Expertise
Room 1220 B
See presentation description.
