Investigating Canadian approaches
In the last decade, there has been an increased interest in incorporating information literacy approaches from other disciplines into legal research education. In 2012 the British and Irish Association of Law libraries published a Legal Information Literacy Statement and the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) introduced its Legal Research Competencies and Standards for Law Student Information Literacy. These statements mark an attempt to adapt the American Association of College and Research Libraries' Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education for use in legal research instruction. The ACRL standards have since been replaced by the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, but there has been no law-specific update to reflect the changes and Canadian institutions have yet to create a framework that reflects our unique legal culture. In fact, little has been published on information literacy in Canadian legal research education.
Although Canada’s legal education system bears many similarities to those in the U.S. and the U.K., the unique nature of our bilingual and bijural (common law and civil law) legal system warrants the development of a tailored Canadian approach to legal information literacy and legal research education. By conducting this research, I am hoping to fill some of the gaps in knowledge about the integration of information literacy into Canadian legal research education and to provide a foundation for the future development of a Canadian standard.
Research objectives and questions:
This project addresses the following research objectives:
To address the gap in knowledge about the integration of information literacy standards into legal research education at Canadian law schools.
To provide a foundation for further research at additional Canadian law schools and ultimately support the development of a Canadian information literacy standard for legal research education.
The overarching research question is how (and to what extent) are information literacy standards and principles being integrated into legal research instruction at Canadian law schools?
Specifically, the proposed research seeks to answer the following sub-questions:
Who is teaching legal research methods?
What teaching methods are being used in legal research instruction?
What legal research approaches are being taught (e.g. bibliographic, doctrinal, literacy-based)?
Which information literacy principles and standards are being integrated into legal research curricula?
If information literacy standards are incorporated in the legal research curriculum, how are these standards being assessed?
Mini literature review
While research suggests that American and British approaches to integrating information literacy into legal research education have diverged, little is known about Canadian approaches. In the U.S., implementation of information literacy standards in practice has lagged theoretical discussion in the literature; while in the U.K., concrete steps have been taken to evaluate legal research programs in light of these standards (Kim-Prieto & Kavhecioglu, 2014).
Information literacy can serve as a new paradigm for legal research education
Information literacy can serve as a new paradigm for legal research education, replacing the former bibliographic approach centered on finding (identifying sources and executing a search) and instead shifting towards understanding and evaluating through a critical lens (Margolis & Murray, 2017, 2012). Information literacy’s strength as a paradigm lies in its ability to provide a technology-agnostic grounding for both content (legal information literacy skills) and pedagogy (legal research instruction methods and techniques)(Margolis & Murray, 2012). Moreover, creating common information literacy standards for law students can provide benchmarks to facilitate standardized assessment of legal research competencies and begin to address long standing concerns among the profession about law students’ legal research proficiency upon graduation (Kim-Prieto, 2011).
There is a significant knowledge gap in relation to... the extent to which information literacy has been integrated as a framework grounding legal research instruction
Aside from individual case studies, there has been no comprehensive survey of methodologies implemented in legal research instruction generally or the incorporation of information literacy principles specifically. A comprehensive review of the literature published in the U.K., U.S. and Canada on pedagogical and methodological approaches to legal research instruction from 2000-2018 revealed a significant knowledge gap in relation to how theoretical foundations for legal research instruction have been integrated into practice, the extent to which information literacy has been integrated as a framework grounding legal research instruction, and which instructional methods and techniques are being used in practice, particularly in Canada (Kochkina, 2018). The goal of this research is to address this gap in the literature for the Canadian context.
Methodology
I chose a mixed-methods, case-study based approach. The plan is to examine a specific law school's legal research instruction offerings in depth through the use of surveys, interviews, and possibly also a curriculum analysis. I hope to establish a methodology that can be replicated at other Canadian law schools so that further research can be conducted to build a more comprehensive picture across institutions. In this explanatory sequential design, an initial phase of quantitative data collection (Phase 1: Survey) will be used to identify results for further examination during the qualitative data collection (Phase 2: Interviews). Finally, I am considering whether or not to include content analysis of the curriculum as a third phase of data collection.
Phase 1 Survey
In the first phase, a survey will be developed to assess knowledge, attitudes and opinions about information literacy in legal research education and to collect descriptive information about existing practices, including teaching methods. A survey will also provide baseline information needed to develop the interview strategy.
Surveys will be sent to any faculty, sessional instructors, librarians or others who teach one-shot or course-based legal research methods in person or online at the law school.
Phase 2 Interviews
All survey participants will be invited to participate in a brief interview. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted one-on-one, starting with a series of guiding questions developed based on the survey results. The interviewer will be able to ask additional follow up questions. Interviews will be recorded, transcribed and coded to identify themes for analysis using NVivo software.
Phase 3: Curriculum analysis?
In addition to the survey and interviews, I am considering conducting an analysis of the legal research curriculum. This would provide a greater depth of insight into the integration of information literacy principles into course objectives and learning outcomes. However, depending on what types of courses are offered and how many, undertaking a curriculum analysis may be quite resource intensive. Other challenges to conducting a curriculum analysis include the (lack of) availability of material, such as syllabi and instructional material, accounting for differences between one-shot library instruction sessions and course-based instruction, and determining an appropriate way to code and analyse the data collected.
Your feedback
Should content analysis of legal research curriculum materials should be included in the research methods? If curriculum analysis is included, should it be completed before the survey and interviews or afterwards? Let me know what you think!
References
Kim-Prieto, D. (2011). The road not yet taken: How law student information literacy standards address identified issues in legal research education and training. Law Library Journal, 103(4), 605–630.
Kim-Prieto, D., & Kahvecioglu, M. K. (2014). Three Faces of Information Literacy in Legal Studies: Research Instruction and Law Student Information Literacy Standards in the American Common Law, British Common Law, and Turkish Civilian Legal Traditions. International Journal of Legal Information, 42(2), 293–302. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0731126500012063
Kochkina, S. (2018). Teaching legal research and government/legal information: Yes, we do it, but how? Canadian Law Library Review, 43(3), 9–17.
Margolis, E., & Murray, K. (2017). Teaching legal research through an information literacy lens. Second Draft, 30(2), 13–17.
Margolis, E., & Murray, K. E. (2012). Say goodbye to the books: Information literacy as the new legal research paradigm. University of Dayton Law Review, 38(1), 117–156.
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