Jessica Bates

Ulster University · School of Education

Community museums can be contested sites for learning as they often communicate clear, subjective narratives that challenge mainstream ideas of the past by introducing knowledge that they know to be uncomfortable, rather than displaying multiple perspectives on a violent past. For that reason, educators of history in a divided society may be cautio...

This paper reports the research findings from an online survey of parents of primary-age pupils in Northern Ireland during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aims of the study were to explore how parents supported their child/ren’s home learning; to ascertain the communication, guidance and resources between home and school; and to learn from the experienc...

In societies emerging from conflict, education plays an important part in instituting peace and reconciliation, and school leaders are key to this. This paper examines the complexity of school leadership in Northern Ireland. Despite the peace agreement of 1998, Northern Ireland’s communities are still deeply divided, and this is reflected in educat...

This article reports on the impact visits to community-based museums in a divided society, Northern Ireland, had on young people’s historical, political, and cultural understanding of the commemorated past. It examines the responses of two student groups, one predominantly Protestant and the other Catholic, to two museums, each presenting its own c...

The ethnic separation of the school system in Northern Ireland along Catholic and Protestant community lines limits opportunities for daily cross-community interaction between young people. Recent research has shown that, whilst the deployment pattern of teachers is largely consistent with this divide, a small proportion of teachers has diverted fr...

How can Community Conversations be used to give communities a voice in policy decisions? This paper is a response to the challenge of engaging citizens in inclusive, meaningful dialogue and deliberation on potentially sensitive policy topics that affect their lives and to create a bridge between individual, community and policy perspectives. This d...

This paper examines the experience of Shared Teachers (STs) who were employed on temporary contracts across school partnerships designed to enrich and integrate the educational experiences of children in primary schools in rural and religiously diverse areas in Northern Ireland, as part of a specific Shared Education Programme. In a society emergin...

The community separation of the school system in Northern Ireland limits opportunities for daily cross-community interaction between young people. The deployment pattern of teachers is largely consistent with this divide. Pupils are therefore unlikely to be taught by a teacher from a community background other than their own. Nonetheless, recent re...

Education is a key mechanism for the restoration of inter-community relations in post-conflict societies. The Northern Ireland school system remains divided along sectarian lines. Much research has been conducted into the efficacy of initiatives developed to bring children together across this divide but there has been an absence of studies into th...

Pupils need to develop information literacy (IL) skills in schools in order to be active members of a skilled workforce, for lifelong learning and digital citizenship. However, there has been little focus on the extent to which this happens in a classroom setting and on information competencies of teachers. As part of a broader study of teachers’ k...

This article investigates academic library needs of doctoral students. The study identifies PhD students’ information literacy training needs and explores current levels of library engagement, barriers to use and gaps in existing services. First year PhD students at Ulster University were surveyed and interviews were undertaken with three students....

The paper reports on a systematic method of undertaking a literature search on the educational impact of being a young carer (16–24 years old). The search methodology applied and described here in detail will be of value to academic librarians and to other education researchers who undertake systematic literature searches. Seven bibliographic datab...

The availability of web search engines offers opportunities in addition to those provided by bibliographic databases for identifying academic literature, but their usefulness for retrieving research is uncertain. A rigorous literature search was undertaken to investigate whether web search engines might replace bibliographic databases, using empiri...

This article reports on a study of the awareness, perceptions and use of e-books by academic staff in Further Education (FE) colleges throughout Northern Ireland (NI). It is the first comprehensive study of e-book use by FE faculty in NI and fills a significant gap in the research literature on e-books in education, which has tended to focus on Hig...

The focus of this article is to reflect on current and near future issues and trends concerning academic libraries. This includes an overview of the literature on embedded librarianship and a focus on the need for more participatory and collaborative approaches to library services.The core argument is that academic libraries need to continue to ada...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report on a study concerning what emotional intelligence (EI) leadership attributes branch managers in the public library service in Northern Ireland (Libraries NI) consider to be most important. Design/methodology/approach The methodology in the study involved a survey of all branch managers in Libraries NI...

Migrants, having left their home society and community, often depend on electronic modes of communication to maintain contacts with distant friends and relations. Their practices illustrate the affordances provided by social media when face to face communication is not available. This paper describes the information and communication practices of P...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of social media (including social networking technologies) on migration strategies and integration, focusing on the use of new technologies for information seeking and dissemination, as well as personal communication. Design/methodology/approach A total of 26 Polish nationals resident in I...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report on a study of student information‐seeking and information‐sharing behaviours and communication during group projects. While a considerable body of literature exists on student information behaviour, less is known about the information behaviours of students working collaboratively, for example, in grou...

This paper reports on a study of the information behavior of Bachelor of Business Studies (BBS) distance learning students in the Quinn School of Business, University College Dublin (UCD). In order to gain a better understanding of the information behaviors of distance-learning students, the study sought to answer the following research questions:...

This paper reports an international comparison of changes in library/information curricula, in response to the changing information environment in which graduates of such courses will work. It is based on a thematic analysis of five case-studies from Australia, Ireland, Lithuania, Slovenia and the United Kingdom. Specifically, it describes response...

Purpose – The purpose of this empirical study is to investigate the use of, and perception of, weblogs in the Irish library and information profession, in order to ascertain the extent weblog technology is used by Irish librarians, and what factors promote or discourage the use of weblogs. Design/methodology/approach – The research questions answe...

This paper reports work on curriculum development for information retrieval, in the wider context of information seeking and human information behaviour. It forms part of a larger EU-supported project, aimed at joint post-Bologna curriculum development for library and information science (LIS) in Europe. No attempt is made to specify a single curri...

With an increasing focus on developing a theoretical understanding of everyday life information behaviors, researchers need to consider the appropriateness of the methods and techniques utilized in empirical research in this area. Progressively, studies articulate the need for a person-centered approach to researching human information behavior, ye...