Philosophy: epistemology of information

“Epistemology” is a philosophical concept that considers the nature of the sources of information we value. It asks questions like these: Where does our disciplinary information come from? What forms does it take? Why is such information seen as significant to our discipline? How do we determine what sources are reliable/valuable and what are not? For those of us who have functioned for some time within a particular discipline, our epistemology is second nature. Not only do we not think much about why we value some forms of information over others, but we might be hard-pressed to teach our epistemology to others. Still, knowing where our information comes from and what significance it has for the work we do is vital to the foundation of disciplinary work. It is also a realm neither understood nor properly appreciated by our students. If their ability with research processes is going to grow, they are going to have to understand the nature of the information field within which they are working.

Helping us are all those “philosophy of” or “theory of” introductory courses that students dread and many faculty members dislike teaching. Why do we teach them? Often because they are seen as essential to knowing a subject area, though it is not at all clear what is essential about them. If we were to think in terms of epistemology, however – how we know what we know, what are our information sources, and why we value some more than others – we might be able to justify the importance of “philosophy of” courses that teach just those elements.

For now, let’s delve a bit deeper into epistemology. A sudden descent like this into philosophical thinking may seem challenging to the attention span, but it is important.

There was a time in which the concept of “information” could be summed up as “that which gives us the foundation for discovering truth.” Postmodernism and Poststructuralism have challenged the assumption that the sources of our information are objective and values-neutral enough to make the acquiring and use of information a sure path to truth. Kapitzke (2003), for example, has argued that information can no longer be seen as operating in some sort of vacuum, separated from the social and historical processes that shape it and justify its existence. Information is not neutral, nor is it apolitical.

Kapitzke goes on to call for us to recognize a hyperliteracy (a literacy that recognizes the various forms and media in which information is found) as a better explanation of the many environmental factors operating when information is created and used. Hyperliteracy includes “intermediality,” the idea that we must view the information process within the worlds of both its producer and user. The one who created the information may not live within the conceptual environment of the one who uses the information, creating a situation in which there is a disconnection between the intent of the creator and the interpretation of the user. Recognizing this reality will help us maintain a constant analysis of the cultures and assumptions of both creator and user.

This idea, that information always is contextual and exists in tension between producers and users, is helpful, yet it neglects one aspect of epistemology – the reality that a source of information needs to be evaluated by criteria that are more or less universally acceptable. We may contextualize the information process, but we must agree upon the interpretive means we employ to recognize what the writer writes, how the information became published, and how the reader reads it. Also, a proper epistemology looks at the qualifications, presuppositions and biases of the writer as well as of the reader.

Here our students need to learn how to use commonly accepted criteria that help them judge the extent to which they can believe, rely upon, or use the information according to the purpose it for which it was created. Unless our epistemology makes a god of subjectivity, any philosophy of knowledge has to ask questions like, “Who wrote this? Does she have the required knowledge base to make her writing reliable? What presuppositions have set the direction for her approach to this topic? What biases do I bring to my reading of her work? What value will this piece of information ultimately have to my quest?”

Academic information generally lives within the context of a subject discipline. In a subject discipline, discourse is carried out by specific though often unwritten rules that make any particular piece of evidence or product of research either valid or invalid, based on the criteria established by the discipline. We might well accept the famous warning of Martin (1998) regarding political bias within disciplines, but Keresztesi (1982) has made it clear in his pioneering article, “The Science of Bibliography,” that the recognition of an area of study as a discipline within the university is the only way for it to achieve widespread approval in society.

This tells us that, though bias may exist within the creator, the publisher, and the reader, we still need ground rules that will guide us in our recognition of the value of information sources and in the means we use to understand them. Epistemological issues are not insignificant ones. Students who understand the forces at work in the production and validation of information sources in their disciplines are prepared to use information intelligently, effectively and ethically to address the research needs which they are facing.

The methodology of the information quest: finding a research model

The teaching of research processes in disciplines, when it is done at all, is seldom built around a coherent research methodology. Part of the problem has been the fact that much of what we have done in the past to attempt the teaching of research processes has really been bibliographic instruction that focuses on the library and its search tools, thus missing the concept that research involves larger processes. Even when we have a clear epistemology in place, the idea of a guiding methodology that shows students how to move from points A to B to C is often lost in the rush to move our instruction from philosophy to application. Thus, while we may teach about the sources of our information, we skip research method in favor of showing students how to use search tools. This creates a library-based architectural model of instruction – here is the catalog, these are the databases, and here is how you use them. Students are left with a box of tools but no blueprint for the project.

We require some way to guide students from the beginning to the end in their research, encompassing all aspects of it. This works best if we employ and teach a research model that enables students to have a clear mental picture of the research task. Commonly, students spin their wheels at the beginning of any piece of research, trying to understand the topic they are working on and struggling to find a direction to take both in finding the information needed and in determining what to do with it in order to produce a coherent product (Head and Eisenberg, 2010). They rarely have a concept of the process involved in moving from start to end. This is what a research model could provide. It would, in essence, explain both the nature of research and the steps required to pursue it.

Research models, however, are open to criticism. The widely used information processing paradigm (McGuire, 1972) that sees a progression from data to information to knowledge has been criticized by many as being too structured and not open enough to the possibility that information can just as easily lead to confusion. Marcum (2002), in particular, has pointed out that knowledge is not organized information but a quantum leap from information to cognition, understanding and experience. He argues: “Knowledge is not certainty but is a set of beliefs about causal relationships between phenomena” (ibid., p. 12).

Marcum further points out that the information processing model, as well as most information literacy models, fails to take into account the crucial role of the researcher in formulating knowledge. “Too little acknowledgment is afforded to the context brought to the process by the learner” (ibid., p. 12).

We might, therefore, give up on the idea that we can find a methodological framework, or research model, to guide the teaching of research processes. Knowledge-building is, to be sure, an eclectic and multi-party process involving acquiring data and making sense of it, while considering both its biases and ours. So it may well be that defining a single research method is at best artificial and at worst impossible. But the alternative is simply to explain to our students how information works within the discipline and then turn them loose on the tools without giving them any process to follow in moving through their research.

Clearly, many students struggle in the early stages of research projects, not seeing a path ahead and feeling a great deal of anxiety that is not alleviated simply by providing them with a rubber-stamp method (Kuhlthau, 2011). It is a fact, as well, that actual research processes are often cyclical, so that initial information gathered leads to reformulation of the research question/hypothesis, leading to more information gathering and writing, which may cause the researcher to return to the resource acquisition stage to bolster the knowledge base or even back to the hypothesis once again to clarify it. This is particularly true of research scholars, whose methodologies are varied and often appear to have no organized structure (Stoan, 1984). But we do not have sufficient reason to avoid putting the application of whatever research processes we are teaching within a methodological framework. As Bodi (2002) has pointed out, established scholars have a knowledge base that allows for the ambiguities and potential confusion of circular research. University students, having a much less mature knowledge base and, indeed, lacking a coherent sense of the purposes and techniques of the research process, flounder in their research, often rejecting whatever method they have been taught but substituting nothing better. They need a fairly consistent road map.

Bodi argues:

Without some sort of flexibly conceived framework for research method, any mechanical skills remain orphans, lacking a blueprint to determine when they should be used. The best way to instill a research methodology is to build assignments around a research process, providing examples that indicate when, and in what manner, the researcher will need to deviate from the normal pattern. In this way, students do not just have a set of tools and some skills to use them, but they also have a process by which using the tools can lead to understanding and problem-solving.

There is a time-honored methodology available to us, however, which can answer most of the methodological doubts we have raised to this point. It is the scientific method. Instantly, we can raise a number of objections – the scientific method too is artificial, limits creativity, and is too rationalistic to deal with all the subjectivity involved in turning information into knowledge. But, as a method, it brings together the main features of most problem-solving in the human enterprise – development of a working knowledge of the issue, creation of a statement that crystallizes the nature of problem at hand (hypothesis or research question), a review of what is currently known about the issue (including a delineation of the various points of view that are held), an exercise to compile and/or evaluate evidence, and a conclusion that weighs all that has been discovered and finds a solution. This method can take many views on an issue into account, can properly address the bias brought by the researcher, and can help discern what passes for “information” to determine its quality/usefulness/reliability in helping to deal with the stated problem.

The scientific research model can be pictured simply as shown in Figure 5.1. Figure 5.1 includes the formulation of a question (or hypothesis), data gathering and synthesis, some sort of process of analysis (evaluation), consideration of resulting information, and development of conclusions. As such, it can work in everything from a science project with literature review to a history paper on the role of 9/11 in shaping immigration policy in the early twenty-first century.

Though the actual course of a research project may not be nearly as linear as Figure 5.1 appears to make it (Kulthau, 2011), it at least puts forward an A–Z process to conceptualize and carry out research in a variety of disciplines. For students lacking any real concept of what they are doing or where they are going in research, it can provide a basic roadmap.

Instruction in application skills

Teaching the application of a research process – how to use keywords and controlled vocabularies; how to search catalogs, databases, and the Internet; how to evaluate information sources – is the predominant territory for many information literacy instructors today. Generally, application is not taught to any great extent by subject faculty members, who leave it for librarians (Bury, 2011). Application skill is important, but as we have argued, it needs to be taught within the spheres of philosophy of information (epistemology) and use a flexible research method if students are to bear fruit in the effective acquiring and use of information.

To use an analogy, the application of research is like a tradesperson’s skill with his or her tools. Proper use of the tools is not enough if the tradesperson has not been educated in the engineering and regulatory aspects of the trade and has not developed expertise in using the right tool to accomplish each stage of the task with skill.

Elmborg wrote:

This requires more than remedial library instruction. It must encompass a comprehensive program of student development. Now is the time to get the teaching of research processes firmly on the academic map, with a level of credibility that will be unassailable. There is certainly enough literature available to prepare us for the teaching task and there are sufficient teachers, if they are equipped, supported and motivated. If there are inadequacies in any aspect, they can be overcome. But we absolutely must take teaching research processes as seriously as do any other foundational aspect of higher education.

To make research processes instruction work, it has to find a home within the curriculum, not as an elective, nor as one program among many, but as an element of the core of every student’s education. As such, it will take a variety of forms and venues from stand-alone courses in majors to through-the-curriculum credit-bearing modules within existing courses. But to make it anything less than a core goal is to leave our students unprepared for the information age.

Metanarrative as a way of conceptualizing research processes

There is one idea that pulls together philosophy, methodology and application within the disciplines: the concept of metanarrative. The term “metanarrative” is unfamiliar to some and highly controversial to others, thus calling for another brief foray into philosophy.

It is a truism that practice arises out of philosophy and that practice divorced from philosophy is often half-blown and less than helpful. This is certainly the case in the realm of research processes instruction, where a tendency to move to the pragmatic before we know why and what we are doing often fragments our endeavors into a wide variety of disparate initiatives, few of which accomplish any more than a small part of the task. The philosophical concept of “metanarrative” can bring cohesion to our efforts to create a rigorous plan for teaching research processes within disciplines.

The term “metanarrative” itself is not particularly mysterious. Our daily lives are filled with a series of “narratives” – how we got to work this morning, how we handled a particular situation, how we decided what to have for lunch, and so on. Binding our smaller narratives together is one or more metanarratives, that is, larger explanations of our reality that guide us through our smaller narratives. Metanarrative explains in big picture fashion why we do what we do and thus defines our view of the world or a portion of it.

To consider an example, those who teach research processes believe that enabling students to handle information skillfully is an essential element of their education and must be pursued vigorously. That is an example of a metanarrative. It is a guiding belief or consensus that helps us set our educational goals and provides the rationale for doing what we do. Thus, a metanarrative is both a motivator and a way of measuring the “truth” or validity of what we are doing. Capitalism is a metanarrative for business and economics, as is, alternatively, socialism. Scientific method is the metanarrative for experimentation in the sciences. Religions are metanarratives for individual lives of faith.

With the rise of Postmodernism, the concept of a metanarrative, as an embracing explanation or rationale for why we do what we do, has come under attack. French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard (1984), and Michael Peters (1995) from the field of education, among many others, have argued that the idea of a metanarrative cannot stand as a philosophical or even a practical concept because there are too many diverse metanarratives to allow for consensus on much of anything. To say that a discipline uses a certain method to discuss issues and advance knowledge is to fly against the reality that there are multiple methods in every discipline. What is more, they argue, there is no consensus about how any academic enterprise is to be furthered, and if there were such a consensus, there would be no way of determining whether it was more “true” than some other possible consensus.

If, indeed, metanarrative is a useless concept, then we have little to talk about. But Postmodernism, focusing on subjectivity and rejection of the rationalistic idea of truth, has in recent years increasingly been losing its own credibility. In many ways it has always been a philosophical concept rather than a practical reality, a Western luxury embraced by we who have most of our daily needs met and can afford to speculate on our diversity rather than clinging to our commonality. While Postmodernism has well taught us that we are all essentially subjective beings whose personal experiences color all that we see and do, it has failed to recognize that in the real world we must live by consensus to survive.

While it is easy to make the case that each of us is subjective, so that coming to a consensus/metanarrative about why and how we do things is rarely possible and is probably invalid if we do so, the fact is that we all, in the practical world, live by consensus. Traffic in our streets flows well (with some exceptions) because we agree on what the rules are, even when there are no police officers nearby. Written communication is possible because we agree on the symbolic meaning of letters, definitions of words, and grammatical structures of sentences. Thus in the face of Postmodern criticism, we can continue to affirm the reality of metanarratives that guide the way in which we function, do our disciplines, and so on.

Let’s bring this down to the task of teaching research processes. We are arguing that we must move away from our often fragmented approaches and enlist the aid of metanarratives based on the way scholars in disciplines actually think about and perform research to further knowledge.

Disciplines in the academic world each carry something of a consensus about the way to “do” that discipline. In fact, disciplines themselves are defined as much by their beliefs, values and agreed-upon methods as they are by their subject matter. While disagreements arise (some of them heated), discipline practitioners tend to work out their problems and maintain their consensus about the best ways to do their work, or else they form separate schools of thought, each with its own consensus. But the affirmation continues that there is a consensus about why and how to do things, or a “metanarrative” of the discipline. It is obvious that there is no single metanarrative in any discipline. Different scholars approach their work in different ways. Some are conservative, while others are radical, constantly pushing the boundaries. But this in no way negates the fact that disciplines have overarching conventions, consistent ways in which they live and advance, based upon what they commonly value and believe.

All of this serves to make a crucial point – the teaching of research processes works best when it is structured within the idea of a metanarrative. Even when we move in “interdisciplinary” directions, there are metanarratives that define what we are trying to accomplish and identify methods that will succeed better than will others.