The cross self-confrontation method and challenges in researching the active information-seeking of young people

THEME 1 Qualitative methods in assessing libraries, users & use: applications, results Chair: Professor David Bowden (Centre for Information Science City University London, UK) The cross self-confrontation method and challenges in researching the active information-seeking of young people Nicole Boubée ÉSPÉ Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées (Higher School for Teaching and Education), University of Toulouse, France. E-mail: Abstract This paper provides a presentation on cross self confrontation (CSC) as a useful qualitative method to address the challenges in studying active information-seeking of youth. There are two great methodological challenges and a major theoretical issue. First, youth information-seeking behaviour is characterised by frequent heuristic reasoning, very quick ways of dealing with digital media, making it difficult to give an exhaustive account of actions. This fundamental characteristic has never been discussed from a methodological point of view. Second, a well known problem is that young people may have difficulties in articulating all their thoughts. Third, young information seekers are frequently compared to expert information seekers. Therefore, what they aren’t doing is well known and what they are doing is unknown. The CSC method presented is based on confronting individuals with their own activity and also with the activity of others with the help of video recordings. The method emerged from educational research known as stimulated recall and developed for work analysis in occupational settings, in allowing individuals to comment on the activities of others. Expected benefits are to assist memory, increase the participants’ reflexivity and provide significant knowledge about “personal touch”, “personal dexterity”. To discuss the potential methodological and theoretical benefits of studying youth information-seeking behaviour, we examine CSC using data from our former research project in Library and Information Science with 30 students aged 10-19 in France, working in tandem on imposed and self-generated information tasks. The results contribute to knowledge about using image and copying and pasting in the youth information-seeking process. Keywords: cross self-confrontation method, youth information-seeking behaviour, students, image, copy and paste. Introduction Constructive discussions about methodological concerns related to adolescents and information have been already conducted in the field of young information behaviour, stressing the importance of matching methods to the unique social and cognitive attributes of youth, different from adults’ attributes (Agosto & Hughes-Hassell, 2006 ; Meyers et al., 2007 ; 2006, Bowler & Mattern, 2012). In taking up these questions, we rejoin this discussion by presenting the methodological approach that we implemented to examine active information-seeking of youth. In order to proceed, we first present an overview of the cross self-confrontation method (CSC) and its response to the central methodological and theoretical issues regarding youth information-seeking behaviour (YISB). We then provide an illustrative understanding of the CSC method based on our former empirical study with 30 students, aged 10-19, seeking information in tandem on imposed and self-generated information tasks. A description of two findings on the uses of image and copy and paste will follow. These results make clear that our methodological proposal, focused on information-seeking behaviour, is a means of exit from completed theoretical perspectives on Digital Natives or Naives. Overview of the cross self-confrontation method The method can be defined as one of a specific research interview. The notion of confrontation is key to understanding its specific nature. This involves presenting the people observed with as much evidence as possible of their behaviour and asking them to comment on it (Theureau, 2010). Origins and expected benefits The origins of CSC lie in the works of educational psychologists; Bloom, who named it “stimulated recall” in the early 1950s, Nielsen who then used the term “self confrontation” in the 1960s (Guérin et al., 2004). Bloom used it as an ethnographic method, confronting students with the film of their activity (Yinger, 1986). Von Cranach in the 1980s, brought a new variation to the method. He confronted a person with their behaviour (in a laboratory) but also showed it to others in order to understand its social meaning (Lacoste, 1997). This method would go on to be used