embedding information literacy in a first-year business undergraduate course
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Embedding information literacy ina first-year business undergraduatecourseRobin Price a , Karen Becker a , Lynette Clark b & Sue Collins ca School of Management , Queensland University of Technology ,Brisbane, Australiab School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations ,Queensland University of Technology , Brisbane, Australiac Liaison Librarian (Business) , Queensland University ofTechnology , Brisbane, AustraliaPublished online: 18 Jan 2011.
To cite this article: Robin Price , Karen Becker , Lynette Clark & Sue Collins (2011) Embeddinginformation literacy in a first-year business undergraduate course, Studies in Higher Education,36:6, 705-718, DOI: 10.1080/03075071003725350
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Studies in Higher Education
ISSN 0307-5079 print/ISSN 1470-174X online© 2011 Society for Research into Higher EducationDOI: 10.1080/03075071003725350http://www.informaworld.com
Embedding information literacy in a first-year business undergraduate course
Robin Pricea*, Karen Beckera, Lynette Clarkb and Sue Collinsc
aSchool of Management, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia; bSchool of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia; cLiaison Librarian (Business), Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, AustraliaSociety for Research into Higher EducationCSHE_A_473057.sgm10.1080/03075071003725350Studies in Higher Education0307-5079 (print)/1470-174X (online)Original Article2010Society for Research into Higher Education0000000002010Post doctoral research fellow [email protected]
This article reports on a project to embed information literacy skills developmentin a first-year undergraduate business course at an Australian university. Inaccordance with prior research suggesting that first-year students are over-confident about their skills, the project used an optional online quiz to allowstudents to pre-test their information literacy skills. The students’ lower thanexpected results subsequently encouraged greater skill development. However,not all students elected to undertake the first quiz. A final assessable informationliteracy quiz increased the levels of student engagement, suggesting that skilldevelopment activities need to be made assessable. We found that undertaking theinformation literacy quizzes resulted in a statistically significant improvement instudents’ information literacy skills from the pre-test to the post-test. This researchtherefore extends previous research by providing an effective means of deliveringinformation literacy skill development to large cohorts of first-year students.
Keywords: information literacy; teaching and learning strategies; collaborativework; scholarship of teaching; student success
Introduction
Just as there is little debate about the growth in available information (Gantz et al.2008), there is unequivocal support for developing tertiary students’ skills in locating,evaluating and using information. For university faculty, the concern with developingstudents’ information literacy skills is a direct means of improving the quality of grad-uates. As a result, there has been a growth in the discussion of information literacyskills across a wide variety of academic disciplines.
There is widespread agreement amongst the discipline-specific, library scienceand general higher education literature that first-year university students experiencedifficulties in developing appropriate university-level information literacy skills(Feast 2003; Barefoot 2006). Information literacy is a key to academic success atuniversity, as well as an invaluable generic skill for lifelong learning. Undergraduatesneed to learn to use research tools in order to locate and critically evaluate informationsources (Quarton 2003). At the same time, however, undergraduate students are moretechnologically savvy than ever before and tend to assume that this equates to infor-mation literacy (Quarton 2003; Brown, Murphy, and Nanny 2003; Oblinger and
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Hawkins 2006; Egan and Katz 2007). This provides a series of challenges for facultyand it is these challenges that we address in this article.
The research described in this article reports on a case study of embedding infor-mation literacy skills within a large first-year business course in an Australian univer-sity. We begin by reviewing the literature on information literacy in higher education,and argue, in line with many others, about the importance of embedding informationliteracy skills in the undergraduate curriculum. Our contribution is to extend the exist-ing literature, not just by describing an effective information literacy intervention andreporting results, but by relating the findings to students’ perceptions of their ownlevel of information literacy and discussing cognitive development and the role thatthis plays in information literacy perceptions and skill development.
Information literacy
Information literacy is often discussed in terms of increasing skills in the use oftechnology; however, it is a broader concept than simple mastery of informationcommunication technologies (Bundy 2004). Scholars in this area note thattechnological literacy differs from information literacy and that while students may betechnologically literate, they are not necessarily information literate (Brown, Murphy,and Nanny 2003; Quarton 2003; Oblinger and Hawkins 2006; Egan and Katz 2007).First, therefore, we examine debates about the nature of information literacy education.
Defining information literacy
Information literacy has been defined in a variety of ways; some definitions focusingon the role of information technology whilst others emphasise the importance oftaking a broader view. Zurkowski (1974) is identified by Johnston and Webber (2003)as the first person to use the term ‘information literacy’. Since then, a growing numberof articles have focused on defining and applying information literacy in the educa-tional arena. As Johnston and Webber’s review of the literature identifies, one conten-tious area is the degree to which the initial step of recognising the need for informationis incorporated into information literacy definitions. However, after this point, manyof the frameworks in information literacy are similar in that they focus on the access,evaluation, application and use of information. The literature, therefore, appears tohave come to a level of consensus on definition and has since moved beyond defininginformation literacy, to the development of comprehensive standards for informationliteracy encompassing clear descriptors and learning outcomes.
In the USA, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) establishedInformation Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (2000). This compre-hensive model identifies five standards, and within each of these provides performanceindicators and learning outcomes. The Australian and New Zealand Institute for Infor-mation Literacy (ANZIIL) has developed a framework (Bundy 2004) based upon theACRL framework which places skill development within the broader context of infor-mation literacy competence and identifies a relationship to lifelong learning. This frame-work is now in its second edition, and was used as the basis for embedding informationliteracy skill development in the curriculum during this research. It is acknowledgedby Bundy (2004) that, even though the ANZIIL standards are a result of broad consul-tation and collaboration and have been adapted to reflect contemporary issues relatingto information literacy, in some places ‘the ACRL text has been left intact [and] else-
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where it has been reworded and paraphrased’ (3). The ANZIIL standards can assist first-year undergraduate students to begin their ‘competence journey’. The details of eachof the six standards are provided along with detailed learning outcomes in Table 1. Thetable also shows the direct correlation with the ACRL standards. The ANZIIL standardsare shown in detail, as they were the standards upon which this research was based.
It is clear that these comprehensive standards can provide a framework uponwhich information literacy skill development can be planned, regardless of context.Not only do the elements of the standard contribute to information literacy, they alsocontribute to broader attributes such as critical analysis that are identified by manyuniversities as essential graduate capabilities.
Who is responsible for information literacy?
Following on from the issue of defining information literacy is the question of whoowns the information literacy agenda, and who takes responsibility for it. Here,Rabinowitz (2000) argues that academic faculty exhibit misconceptions about the roleof library staff in assisting students with their research and learning, and consequentlythere is limited knowledge transfer between the two groups. For example, it is the roleof the faculty to set assessment and to make the purpose and requirements of a pieceof assessment clear to students, but it falls to library professionals to deal with students’different learning styles and ‘library anxiety’ (Rabinowitz 2000, 339). Therefore,building partnerships between academic faculty and library professionals has beenadvocated for some time (Bruce 2001). Collaboration is specifically valuable when theobjective is to build students’ information literacy skills (Rabinowitz 2000; Cunning-ham and Lanning 2002; Wakefield 2007; Brasley 2008; Bowers et al. 2009), and tomove beyond the ‘one-off’ library presentation to students to more of a true partnership(Jackson and Durkee 2008; Kenedy and Monty 2008; Stevens and Campbell 2008).Indeed, much recent research reports upon information literacy interventions wherepartnerships are accepted as an integral part of the process (for example, see Donaldson2000; Judd et al. 2004; Loo and Chung 2006; Andrews and Patil 2007; Alfino et al.2008; Deitering and Jameson 2008; Ferrer-Vinent and Carello 2008; Hayes-Bohananand Spievak 2008; Heichman Taylor 2008). It would seem, therefore, that the disci-pline-specific knowledge of faculty and the library staff’s knowledge of informationliteracy support and interventions can be brought together to the benefit of students.
Where and how is information literacy being taught?
Accepting that information literacy is important, being able to clearly articulate theelements of information literacy in the form of standards and learning outcomes, andaccepting that library staff and academics alike have a role to play, is only the begin-ning of the process. The next step, we propose, is to determine where and how infor-mation literacy should be incorporated within the curriculum.
The first year, or the freshman year, is when undergraduate students acquire thehabits and skills that facilitate and enable successful university study (Barefoot 2006).There is widespread agreement that teaching information literacy needs to commenceduring this first year of study, and much of the extant research focuses on this impor-tant point in a student’s university life (Caspers and Bernhisel 2005; Barefoot 2006;Byerly, Downey, and Ramin 2006). Empirical research that has assessed students’competence in academic information literacy demonstrates that first-year students
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Tabl
e 1.
AN
ZII
L a
nd A
CR
L S
tand
ards
(co
mpi
led
from
Ass
ocia
tion
of
Col
lege
and
Res
earc
h L
ibra
ries
200
0, 8
–14;
Bun
dy 2
004,
11–
23).
AN
ZII
L S
tand
ard
The
inf
orm
atio
n li
tera
te p
erso
n …
Lea
rnin
g ou
tcom
esT
he i
nfor
mat
ion
lite
rate
per
son
…C
orre
spon
ding
AC
RL
Sta
ndar
dT
he i
nfor
mat
ion
lite
rate
stu
dent
…
1. re
cogn
ises
the
need
for i
nfor
mat
ion
and
dete
rmin
es t
he n
atur
e an
d ex
tent
of
the
info
rmat
ion
need
ed
1.1
defi
nes
and
arti
cula
tes
the
info
rmat
ion
need
1.2
unde
rsta
nds
the
purp
ose,
sco
pe a
nd a
ppro
pria
tene
ss o
f a v
arie
ty o
f in
form
atio
n so
urce
s1.
3 re
-eva
luat
es t
he n
atur
e an
d ex
tent
of
the
info
rmat
ion
need
1.4
uses
div
erse
sou
rces
of
info
rmat
ion
to i
nfor
m d
ecis
ions
1. d
eter
min
es th
e na
ture
and
ext
ent o
f th
e in
form
atio
n ne
eded
2. f
inds
nee
ded
info
rmat
ion
effe
ctiv
ely
and
effi
cien
tly
2.1
sele
cts
the
mos
t ap
prop
riat
e m
etho
ds o
r to
ols
for
find
ing
info
rmat
ion
2.2
cons
truc
ts a
nd i
mpl
emen
ts e
ffec
tive
sea
rch
stra
tegi
es2.
3 ob
tain
s in
form
atio
n us
ing
appr
opri
ate
met
hods
2.4
keep
s up
to
date
wit
h in
form
atio
n so
urce
s, i
nfor
mat
ion
tech
nolo
gies
, inf
orm
atio
n ac
cess
too
ls a
nd i
nves
tiga
tive
met
hods
2. a
cces
ses
need
ed i
nfor
mat
ion
effe
ctiv
ely
and
effi
cien
tly
3. c
riti
call
y ev
alua
tes
info
rmat
ion
and
the
info
rmat
ion
seek
ing
proc
ess
3.1
asse
sses
the
use
fuln
ess
and
rele
vanc
e of
the
inf
orm
atio
n ob
tain
ed3.
2 de
fine
s an
d ap
plie
s cr
iter
ia f
or e
valu
atin
g in
form
atio
n3.
3 re
flec
ts o
n th
e in
form
atio
n se
ekin
g pr
oces
s an
d re
vise
s se
arch
st
rate
gies
as
nece
ssar
y
3. e
valu
ates
inf
orm
atio
n an
d it
s so
urce
s cr
itic
ally
and
inc
orpo
rate
s se
lect
ed in
form
atio
n in
to h
is o
r her
kn
owle
dge
base
and
val
ue s
yste
m4.
man
ages
inf
orm
atio
n co
llec
ted
or
gene
rate
d4.
1 re
cord
s in
form
atio
n an
d it
s so
urce
s4.
2 or
gani
ses
(ord
ers/
clas
sifi
es/
stor
es)
info
rmat
ion
4. i
ndiv
idua
lly
or a
s a
mem
ber
of a
gr
oup,
use
s in
form
atio
n ef
fect
ivel
y to
acc
ompl
ish
a sp
ecif
ic p
urpo
se5.
app
lies
pri
or a
nd n
ew i
nfor
mat
ion
to c
onst
ruct
new
con
cept
s or
cre
ate
new
und
erst
andi
ngs
5.1
com
pare
s an
d in
tegr
ates
new
und
erst
andi
ngs
wit
h pr
ior
know
ledg
e to
det
erm
ine
the
valu
e ad
ded,
con
trad
icti
ons
or o
ther
un
ique
cha
ract
eris
tics
of
the
info
rmat
ion
5.2
com
mun
icat
es k
now
ledg
e an
d ne
w u
nder
stan
ding
s ef
fect
ivel
y6.
use
s in
form
atio
n w
ith
unde
rsta
ndin
g an
d ac
know
ledg
es
cult
ural
, eth
ical
, eco
nom
ic, l
egal
, an
d so
cial
iss
ues
surr
ound
ing
the
use
of i
nfor
mat
ion
6.1
ackn
owle
dges
cul
tura
l, et
hica
l an
d so
cioe
cono
mic
iss
ues
rela
ted
to a
cces
s to
, and
use
of,
inf
orm
atio
n6.
2 re
cogn
ises
tha
t in
form
atio
n is
und
erpi
nned
by
valu
es a
nd b
elie
fs6.
3 co
nfor
ms
wit
h co
nven
tion
s an
d et
ique
tte
rela
ted
to a
cces
s to
, and
us
e of
, inf
orm
atio
n6.
4 le
gall
y ob
tain
s, s
tore
s, a
nd d
isse
min
ates
tex
t, da
ta, i
mag
es o
r so
unds
5. u
nder
stan
ds m
any
of t
he
econ
omic
, leg
al, a
nd s
ocia
l is
sues
su
rrou
ndin
g th
e us
e of
info
rmat
ion
and
acce
sses
and
use
s in
form
atio
n et
hica
lly
and
lega
lly
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have limited knowledge of academically credible search options, determining bias orassessing the quality of sources, search techniques or correct citation techniques(Ferguson, Neely, and Sullivan 2006). Additionally, students have been found to over-estimate their degree of information literacy competence, and are therefore unlikely toseek assistance (Gross and Latham 2007). Messineo and DeOllos’s study (2005)suggests that students adjust their perceptions of their own skill levels as their experi-ence increases. Feedback too, via course assessment and grades, is likely to alter skill-level perceptions. While the first year offers the opportunity for universities to beginthe process of teaching students how to learn and handle the wide array of informationavailable to them, the size of first-year classes often inhibits this process (James 2001;Barefoot 2006). To overcome these deficiencies, a range of approaches to developstudents’ information literacy has been adopted.
There is limited evidence of advocacy for stand-alone information literacy coursesas a compulsory part of a university curriculum. While some report worthwhileoutcomes from stand-alone information literacy courses (Webber and Johnston 2000;Johnston and Webber 2003; Wakefield 2007; Badke 2008), others warn against treat-ing information literacy as a generic course, without providing discipline-specificcontext (Loo and Chung 2006). The dominant model advocated by library profession-als and academic faculty is the ‘embedding’ of information literacy skills withincurriculum (Brooks and Gillespie 2001; Blackall 2002; Feast 2003; Hooks andCorbett 2005; Kimsey and Cameron 2005; Proctor, Wartho, and Anderson 2005;Cochrane 2006; Andrews and Patil 2007; Wakefield 2007; Ward and Hockey 2007;Deitering and Jamieson 2008; Dell-Price and Cotton 2008; Ferrer-Vinent and Carello2008; Heichman Taylor 2008, Zoellner, Samson, and Hines 2008). However, theapproaches to embedding, and consequently to assessment, vary.
The embedding of information literacy can be broadly categorised into threedifferent approaches. All three approaches incorporate discipline-specific informationliteracies within a course, either by face-to-face instruction, classroom activities orother mechanisms, but the difference lies in whether information literacy skills areexplicitly assessed. The first approach focuses on embedding information literacyskills within course instruction, as a stand-alone, discipline-specific activity, but notassessing these skills either explicitly or implicitly. An example of this is the conven-tional one-hour lecture by a library professional delivered as part of a course (Furnoand Flanagan 2008). A variation of this approach is that taken by Caspers and Bern-hisel (2005), where students’ information literacy skills are formatively assessed onentry to a course, and this information is used to tailor information literacy instructionwithin the course. The second approach focuses on embedding information literacywithin a course and integrating the assessment of information literacy skills into otherdiscipline-specific tasks. Here, measuring information literacy is only one part of theoverall result (Larkin and Pines 2005), for example a writing task that requiresstudents to locate and use a certain number of quality sources. While the quality of theoverall sources will affect the quality of the student’s assessment, research skills mayonly represent part of the total grade for the assessment instrument. The third approachis to embed discipline-specific information literacy into the course, and explicitlyassess information literacy skills (Kenedy and Monty 2008). Empirical evidencesuggests that in order for students to fully engage, information literacy skills need tobe made assessable (Cochrane 2006; Badke 2008). For the purposes of this researchproject, we adopted the third approach and, as a means of testing the effectiveness ofthis approach, our first research question was:
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RQ1. Did students’ information literacy skills improve during the semester?
Cognitive development and its implications for information literacy
Many academics experience frustration with the quality of undergraduate students’research capacity, as do library staff tasked with assisting students to conduct research(Jackson 2007). Here, Perry’s (1998) cognitive development research offers insightsinto the information literacy problems experienced by first-year and later-yearstudents. After 15 years of research on undergraduate student development, Perrycreated a nine-position framework describing students’ development. These ‘posi-tions’ reflect a person’s ‘assumptions about knowledge and value’ and how the personhas ‘construed his experience in different areas of his life at different times’ (52), or,in more gender-neutral language, the dominant ‘position from which a person viewsthe world’ (54). These positions, while apparently linear, are of varying duration andPerry argues that not all students will progress through the nine development positionswhile at university.
The first position, basic dualism, is where students assume that all problems havecorrect and incorrect answers, and that by conforming to what the authority (in thiscontext, the faculty member) wants, the correct answer will be obtained. The secondposition, multiplicity pre-legitimate, builds upon the first position. Knowledgeremains the ‘collection of information’, but the student encounters authorities whoadopt opposing views and thereby create uncertainty. As a result, students experi-ence dissonance and can feel alienated as their world view is challenged. At thispoint, ‘uncertainty is not yet perceived as epistemologically legitimate’ (Perry 1998,90), so students can choose to accept the confusion created by a multiplicity of viewsand work towards forming their own view, or reject the notion of diversity andbecome defensive, usually by blaming faculty for failing to mediate between oppos-ing views. In the later positions, from three to nine, students develop towards a posi-tion whereby they establish that knowledge and values ‘are relative in time andcircumstance’ and that an individual is ‘faced with the responsibility for choice’(170), but these are beyond the focus of this article. Our focus in this project was todevelop an information literacy skills intervention that met the needs of our first-year, presumably ‘dualistic’, students and therefore we posed the followingadditional research questions:
RQ2. Do first-year students self-assess their information literacy skills higher thannon-first-year students prior to any information literacy intervention?RQ3. Did self-perception of information literacy skills change after theinformation literacy intervention?RQ4. Does year of study influence whether or not the students chose to undertakethe online tutorial prior to the second quiz?
The context and method
The restructuring of an undergraduate business degree at an Australian universityprovided the opportunity to embed information literacy skills within a new compul-sory core course. This degree contains eight compulsory core courses, which areintended to provide grounding in academic and business skills as well as to introduce
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students to the majors available across the business degree. Our first step in theresearch process, after obtaining ethical clearance, was to interview the faculty whocoordinated the core first-year courses in order to establish the specific information,and the information literacy skills, required in their courses, as well as their percep-tions of the problems that students experienced in relation to information literacy.Academic staff interviewed during this preliminary stage felt that students exhibited:limited understanding of their own lack of skill; limited knowledge of suitableresources, or skills in accessing suitable resources; as well as limited capacity foradequate referencing. Coordinators also proffered a range of types of informationnecessary for completion of their courses, at the same time as they raised questionsabout whether students’ lack of demonstrated capacity was more accurately describedas a lack of engagement. These findings were used to inform our information literacyintervention.
Our objectives in embedding an information literacy activity were diverse. Oneobjective was to facilitate a realisation in students that technological skills do notequate to information skills. The second objective was to encourage students to locatethe information sources that they would require in the first year of their degree, thusenhancing the immediate relevance of the activity. Following from this, additionalobjectives were to stimulate students to undertake further information literacy skillbuilding, as well as to establish a benchmark for academic skills, such as referencing,and to improve overall student information literacy skills. In the light of faculty’sperceptions of low levels of information literacy amongst our first-year students,Perry’s (1998) assertion of first-year student dualism, and the large number of studentsenrolled in first-year courses (often in excess of 1500 a semester), we decided tointroduce an online initial quiz to allow students to self-assess their skill levels in anon-threatening, non-assessable environment. The online quiz questions were multi-ple-choice and targeted at specific skills and information sources necessary for thecourse specifically and for the first year of the business degree more generally. As wewanted to encourage students to learn to locate information, students were instructedto open another window in their web browser so that they could search for the correctanswers to the questions via the library’s home page while undertaking the quiz.
This first quiz, consisting of 10 questions across all six areas of informationliteracy (the ANZIIL standards in Table 1), was optional in accordance with its forma-tive function and delivered online via the university’s learning management system.Students were allowed one hour to undertake the online quiz and the quiz closed at theend of week two of the teaching period. Immediately following quiz 1, students wereprovided with their results.
After completion of the first quiz, students were provided with a range of sugges-tions for developing improved information literacy skills. The university has an onlineinformation literacy instruction module, PILOT, and students were encouraged (viacourse documentation and email) to undertake this online instruction package or toseek assistance from a range of other available services in order to improve their infor-mation literacy skills before undertaking the second quiz. Our intention was toincrease the likelihood of students fully engaging with the learning process (Cochrane2006; Badke 2008). The second online quiz contained 20 multiple-choice questions,which formed 10% of the student’s total mark in the course. These questions wererandomly drawn from six pools of questions relating to each of the six ANZIIL stan-dards. This quiz was active for one hour and needed to be completed before the endof week three of the semester. On completion of the second quiz, the entire student
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cohort was asked to complete an anonymous, voluntary questionnaire that asked fordemographic information, as well as their perceptions of their information literacyskills and of the information literacy quizzes.
As recommended in the literature, this project represents a collaborative effortbetween the library’s staff, in this case discipline-specific liaison librarians and thefaculty responsible for teaching and administering the course. The findings from theinterviews with core course coordinators were discussed with the liaison librarians,and the librarians developed the quiz questions aligned with the six areas of informa-tion literacy identified in the ANZIIL standards. Questions were reviewed by facultyand uploaded to the university’s learning management system. The quiz was firstpiloted over a summer semester with a cohort of 150 students and minor changes weresubsequently made to the quiz questions to enhance readability and studentunderstanding of requirements.
Findings
This article reports on the second offering of the course, with 1405 enrolled students.Not all students enrolled in the course were business students, nor were they all firstyears, as a number of students were transitioning between different degree structures.Hence, this particular course offering provided an opportunity to contrast first-yearstudents’ information literacy with that of later-year students. Of the cohort thatcompleted the course, 1047 (75%) were first-year students, 217 (15%) second-year,141 (10%) third-year or later-year (primarily part-time) students. After this initialoffering, most future cohorts will be first-year students.
When collecting and analysing the data, it is acknowledged that a number of limi-tations exist. Firstly, as the questionnaire component of the research was voluntaryand anonymous, it is not known whether our participants’ self-evaluations andcomments are representative of non-responders. Secondly, it is acknowledged that thisresearch has been conducted within one discipline setting. Replicating this study atother tertiary institutions, and across disciplines, would test the generalisability of ourfindings. Also, due to the anonymity of responses to the questionnaire, our study doesnot inform us as to how self-rated information literacy skill levels compare with actualability, which would be worthy of further examination.
Of the 1405 students enrolled, 1345 completed some or all of the assessmentitems, including the first and second information literacy quizzes, and obtained agrade for the course. Of the total 1345 students who received a grade for the course,1160 students undertook the first non-assessable quiz (86% response rate), while 1289students completed the second assessable quiz (96% response rate). Within thiscohort, 233 students responded to the questionnaire measuring student perceptions oftheir information literacy skills, representing a 17% response rate. Questionnairerespondents were enrolled in single business degrees (90%), double degrees includingbusiness (7%) and non-business degrees (3%). Respondents’ ages ranged from 17 to53 years, with the average age being 21 years (standard deviation [SD] = 5.08). Fifty-five per cent of questionnaire respondents (n = 127) were in their first year of study,compared to 74% of the entire cohort, so our questionnaire respondents includedproportionally more later-year students. We posit that this may be because later-yearstudents are more accustomed to providing feedback via online mechanisms.
To enable analysis, the questionnaire data were divided into two categories, thosein their first year of study (n = 127), and those in later years (n = 106). Data measuring
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Table 2. ANZIL standards (Bundy 2004, 11–23) and indicative quiz questions.
ANZIIL StandardThe information literate person …
1. recognises the need for information and determines the nature and extent of the information needed
If your assignment was on the topic of the recent increase in company accountability requirements, which of the following limiters would be MOST useful?
A: Full-text articles onlyB: Australia as a geographical limitC: Most recent five years as a time/date limitD: Scholarly or refereed journalsE: Spanish as a language limit
2. finds needed information effectively and efficiently
Where should you place the truncation symbol (*) to pick up variations of the term profession, without retrieving irrelevant results?
A: prof*B: profess*C: pro*D: professi*E: profession*
3. critically evaluates information and the information seeking process
Which of the following domains is likely to be least authoritative?
A: .gov.auB: .edu.auC: .ac.ukD: .comE: .mil
4. manages information collected or generated
What is missing from the reference in accordance with the APA Style?
Smith, B. (2007) Engaging Public Relations: a strategic planning approach. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co.
A: Year of publicationB: Page numbersC: Place of publicationD: Publisher
5. applies prior and new information to construct new concepts or create new understandings
Which of the following call numbers is out of sequence?
A: 124 112B: 125.028 1C: 125.0208 10D: 125.0208 58E: 128.028 9
6. uses information with understanding and acknowledges cultural, ethical, economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information
You want to photocopy some material from your textbook for your study. How much can you legally copy?
A: None of itB: 10% of the total number of pages or one chapter
whichever is the greaterC: 20%D: All of it, provided it is not used for commercial
purposesE: Table of contents pages only
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respondent self-assessment of perceived literary skill level were also categorised.First-year students who rated their level of information literacy skills with a rating of‘1 = excellent’ or ‘2 = above average skills’ comprised one category (labelled as‘above average confidence’, n = 47), with the remainder (reporting ‘3 = average’ or‘4 = below average’ or ‘5 = poor’) labelled as the alternate category (n = 43). Anumber of first-year students (n = 37) did not respond to this question.
Of the 233 questionnaire respondents, 214 (92%) reported undertaking the firstquiz. Likewise, not all students elected to undertake the online tutorial (the PILOTprogram) after taking the first quiz. Of the 233 students who responded to the ques-tionnaire, only 80 (35%) reported using the PILOT program. However, 93 (39%)reported visiting the library website or taking other measures to improve their infor-mation literacy, while 60 (26%) took no action whatsoever. We have analysed theresults from this questionnaire in order to answer the research questions identifiedearlier. Each research question will be addressed in turn.
RQ1. Did information literacy skills improve during the semester?
Student results for the two information literacy quizzes were compared to determinewhether participant information literacy skills changed significantly during thesemester. Quiz 1 scores (M [mean] = 6.96, SD = 1.54) were lower than Quiz 2 scores(M = 7.74, SD = 1.49). The difference was significant (t (1097) = 12.77, p < .001);thus this result suggests that information literacy skills improved during the semester.However, the extent of information literacy skill improvement is likely to have beeninfluenced by the second quiz being summative and the first quiz simply formative.The lower number of students who attempted the formative first quiz reinforces otherliterature that suggests that students are becoming increasingly instrumental in theirallocation of study effort (James 2001). As such, our findings lend support to argu-ments in the literature that information literacy skills must be assessable beforestudents fully engage in learning (Badke 2008).
RQ2. Do first-year students self-assess their information literacy skills higher than non-first-year students prior to any information literacy intervention?
To determine this, a cross-tabulation was undertaken. A chi-square test of indepen-dence was performed to examine the relation between first year of study and confi-dence in existing information literacy skill level. The relation between these variableswas significant, χ2 (2, n = 127) = 5.14, p < .05. Thus, in answer to this question, agreater proportion of first-year students than expected reported confidence in theirinformation literacy skills, rating themselves as being ‘excellent’ or ‘above average’.This is consistent with other research which reports over-confidence amongst first-year students (Gross and Latham 2007).
RQ3. Did self perception of information literacy skills change after the information literacy intervention?
From the questionnaire data we analysed students’ perceptions of their informationliteracy skills level to determine whether their self-assessment changed after receivingtheir quiz 1 scores. In the first quiz perceived skill level scores (M = 2.60, SD = 1.00)were lower than the perception of skill level scores after the intervention (M = 2.24,
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SD = 0.77). The difference was significant (t (228) = 5.92, p < .001). Thus, students’perceptions of their information literacy skill level changed significantly uponreceiving feedback from their first quiz scores, supporting previous research findings(Messineo and DeOllos 2005) that students adjust their perceptions of their own skilllevels as their experience increases. As a result, we would advocate that students’information literacy skills are pre-tested, prior to any instruction, to act as a stimulusfor increased engagement.
RQ4. Does year of study influence whether or not the students chose to undertake the online tutorial prior to the second quiz?
Data were analysed to ascertain if year of study was associated with students’ propen-sity to voluntarily complete the online PILOT tutorial before the second quiz. A chi-square test of independence showed that the relation between these variables wassignificant, χ2 (1, n = 231) = 8.28.14, p < .01. These findings indicate that a greaterproportion of students in their first year of study than those in subsequent yearscompleted the online tutorial PILOT program before quiz 2. This suggests thatstudents who completed the first quiz became aware of their lack of information liter-acy skills, presumably as a result of undertaking the quiz, and took steps to remedythis situation. As such, our results support Messineo and DeOllos’s (2005) findingsthat students’ perceptions of their skill levels alter with experience of the realities ofuniversity study. More importantly though, our findings suggest that first years aremore likely to take advantage of additional skill-building opportunities once their lackof skill has been identified.
Discussion and conclusion
This study examined student results from, and perceptions of, an information literacyintervention. We found that first-year students were significantly more confidentabout their information literacy skills than later-year students. This reinforces the find-ings of Gross and Latham (2007), and provides strong impetus for structuring infor-mation literacy skills training in a way that allows students to pre-test their skills andreceive formative feedback. Our data also indicated that students adjusted theirperceptions of their own information literacy skills upon receiving their results fromthe initial quiz. Thus, the initial quiz provided students with a valuable ‘reality check’of their current information literacy skill levels, and also acted as a catalyst for furtherskill development. In our case, first-year students were much more inclined to seek outfurther information literacy skill-building resources than later-year students. Preciselywhy this occurred would require further investigation, but student responses to theopen-ended questions on the questionnaire, which are not reported here, provide someinsight. For instance, while students who responded to the questionnaire overwhelm-ingly reported the potential value of the information literacy activity, later-yearstudents felt that it was ‘too late’, ‘too lame’ and ‘unnecessary’ given their stage intheir degrees. These findings also support the need to introduce students toinformation literacy skills early in their degree program.
The use of a multiple-choice quiz met the expectations of students in the dualisticphase of cognitive development (Perry 1998). In a university sector operating underincreasing resource constraints, the use of online quizzes also provided a cost-effec-tive means of providing feedback to a large group of students. While our findings
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suggest that student results improved significantly on completion of the second quiz,further research would be necessary to ascertain whether this was due to learning, orto the second quiz counting as part of the student’s grade for the unit, which stimulatedgreater engagement. Either way, making the second quiz assessable meant that agreater number of students took the time to complete the quiz, supporting otherresearch that argues for the assessment of information literacy skills (Cochrane 2006;Badke 2008). These findings also add support for James’s (2001) assertion aboutuniversity students becoming more instrumental in their approach towards study.
In conclusion, this article has reviewed the literature on information literacy andmade a case for partnerships between academic faculty and library professionals. Wedescribed a case study of using partnerships to embed information literacy skills byintroducing online quizzes in a large first-year course. Our findings indicated thatallowing students to pre-test their information literacy skills alters their perceptions oftheir information literacy competence and encourages greater engagement with skilldevelopment. Additionally, we demonstrated that information literacy interventions ofthis sort need to be done in the first year, before students have progressed to higherlevels of cognitive development, where they are less inclined to perceive multiple-choice quizzes on information literacy as valid or valuable. We also demonstrated thatmaking the acquisition of information literacy skills assessable increases the likeli-hood that students will undertake the activity, and hence potentially benefit from theintervention. Hence, we have added to the existing literature on student informationliteracy programs by establishing how students’ perceptions of their own informationliteracy skills might be adjusted, and provided an example of how this could beachieved in an effective way that aligns with first-year students’ stage of cognitivedevelopment.
AcknowledgementsWe would like to thank the Faculty of Business at Queensland University of Technology forits financial support of this research. We would also like to thank the lecturers and students whoparticipated for their cooperation. Additionally, thanks go to the library staff who assisted atvarious stages of the project, Robyn Edmanson, Margaret Bremner and Kathleen Keane.
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