Playful Information Literacy: Play and information Literacy in Higher Education

Abstract

It is often difficult to address higher level information literacy skills in Higher Education. This paper argues if we see information literacy as contextual rather than an absolute list of competencies, then play can give us a route to developing those higher level skills.

It takes a social constructivist approach in defining information literacy, before going on to define play and games as belonging on a wide spectrum between completely free or open play and highly structured games.

Using examples from the literature, the paper builds the argument that play is one answer towards meeting the need to develop high level information literacy in students, even though there is limited empirical research into adult play and information literacy development.