Using web-based collaborative forecasting to enhance information literacy and disciplinary knowledge

This paper outlines how an existing collaborative forecasting tool called a prediction market (PM) can be integrated into an educational context to enhance information literacy skills and cognitive disciplinary knowledge. The paper makes a number of original contributions. First, it describes how this tool can be packaged as a pedagogical intervention which can be used in a range of contexts across multiple disciplines. This is illustrated by a case study, which describes the addition of a PM assignment to an undergraduate module. Second, using both quantitative and qualitative data, the paper empirically investigates the impact of PM participation on engagement in information search and cognitive disciplinary knowledge. Our results show that participant's behaviors are altered by the intervention, and that students actively search for information related to the forecasting problems presented. We also demonstrate that students' disciplinary knowledge is enhanced by the intervention.