Helena Hollis

I am a current PhD student interested in the effects of reading habits, especially fiction, and how they relate to critical thinking.

My research topic is “The influence of reading fiction upon critical thinking”

Based on exiting research into the benefits of reading fiction (such as increased empathy, and counterfactual thinking), I hypothesise that people who read more fiction will do better at critically evaluating a piece of non-fiction text. My research fits under the umbrella of Information Literacy (IL), but it is also related to the study of aesthetics in philosophy, and individual differences in psychology.

I am supervised by Dr Oliver Duke-Williams, Dr Alison Hicks, and Dr Andreas Vlachidis.

In addition to my PhD research, I am also leading on the "what does ‘good work’ look like" component of the AI and the Future of Work project at UCL Grand Challenges and Public Policy, in partnership with the British Academy.

Contact me:

helena.hollis.14(at)ucl.ac.uk

Find me online:

ResearchGate

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1950-0657

Publications:

Hollis, H., Rachitskiy, M., van der Leer, L., & Elder, L. (in press). Validation of the International Critical Thinking Essay Test Form A (ICTET-A). Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10093714/

Hollis, H. (2019). Information Literacy and Critical Thinking: Different concepts, shared conceptions. Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science, Information Research 24(4), paper 1921. Retrieved from http://www.informationr.net/ir/24-4/colis/colis1921.html

Hollis, H., Rachitskiy, M., & van der Leer, L. (2019). The development and face validity testing of the Open Test of Information Literacy with context-specific add-ons: OTIL. Liber Quarterly, 29(1), 1-21. doi: 10.18352/lq.10264

Hollis, H. (2018). Information literacy as a measurable construct: A need for more freely available, validated, and wide ranging instruments. Journal of Information Literacy, 12(2), 76-88. doi: 10.11645/12.2.2409

Presentations:

Hollis, H. (2021, June). Are fiction readers more disposed towards critical thinking? Paper presented at International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature 17^th International Conference (IGEL21), online.

Hollis, H. (2019, June). Information literacy and critical thinking: Different concepts, shared conceptions. Paper presented at Conceptions of Library and Information Science (COLIS) 10th Conference, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Hollis, H. (2019, June). Information Literacy and Critical Thinking: How similar are their conceptions? How can we increase the dialogue between the fields that use these different terms? Round-table discussion lead at The 39th Annual International Conference on Critical Thinking, Leuven, Belgium.

Hollis, H., Rachitskiy, M., & van der Leer, L. (2018, May). Modelling factors influencing academic outcomes: The role of information literacy, effort, intelligence, academic emotion, and academic self-concept. Paper presented at Quantitative and Qualitative Methods in Libraries (QQML) Conference, Chania, Greece.

Hollis, H. (2018, April). Information literacy as a measurable construct: A need for more freely available, validated, and wide ranging instruments. Paper presented at Librarian’s Information Literacy Annual Conference (LILAC), Liverpool, UK.