Understanding the Development of Information Literacy in Higher Education

I completed a PhD in Information Literacy (IL) at UiT The Arctic University of Norway in November, 2022. Two of my research questions were:

  1. How can we measure students’ IL knowledge (know), skills (do), and interest in being or becoming information literate (feel)?
  2. In which ways do students develop as information literate individuals over their first three years as undergraduates?

I developed four tools to quantitatively measure students’ IL knowledge, skills, and interest. In addition, I interviewed students to gain insight into their perceptions of their development as information literate individuals. The use of mixed methods allowed me to better explore the totality of their growth. I paid special attention to possible transformative IL learning or changes in their identity as information literate people. In this presentation, I briefly introduce the IL tools and present main findings from my research.

I evaluated the tools I developed for this research for reliability and validity; the tools are freely available for others to use. To measure IL knowledge (knowing), I used the 21-item test, TILT (Nierenberg, Låg, & Dahl, 2021). TILT measures students’ knowledge of three main facets of IL: finding, evaluating, and using information sources. To assess students’ IL skills in practice (doing), I employed two assignment-based measures. One measure assesses the ability to evaluate sources and the other measures the ability to use sources correctly when writing. I developed the questionnaire, TRIQ, to measure students’ interest in being or becoming information literate people (feeling) In developing TRIQ I was informed by Hidi and Renninger’s (2006) four-phase model of interest development (Dahl & Nierenberg, 2021). TRIQ is composed of several subscales, including the Meaningfulness and Competence level, and I designed it to measure how interest changes over time.

I utilized this suite of four tools to measure students’ knowing, doing, and feeling at several points during the first three years of their undergraduate education. Results revealed that their IL knowledge and skills increased with time, as expected, while findings from TRIQ’s interest subscales showed varied results. Interestingly, correlations between knowing, doing, and feeling scores also increased with time, possibly indicating an integration of knowledge, skills, and interest, and thereby a deeper kind of learning.

Regarding the second research question, students’ perceptions of themselves as information literate people clearly evolved during their three years of higher education. Interview findings indicate that some students experienced glimmers of transformative IL learning and changes in identity as information literate individuals (Nierenberg, 2022). By employing mixed methods, where quantitative and qualitative findings are integrated, I found the evidence for transformative learning was strengthened. This research lays the foundation for subsequent research by identifying specific qualities of the student experience in capturing IL growth, transformation, and identity change.

References

  • Dahl, T. I., & Nierenberg, E. (2021). Here’s the TRIQ: The Tromsø Interest Questionnaire based on the four-phase model of interest development. Frontiers in Education, 6(402), 1–17.
  • Hidi, S., & Renninger, K. A. (2006). The four-phase model of interest development. Educational Psychologist, 41(2), 111–127.
  • Nierenberg, E. (2022). Understanding the development of information literacy in higher education: Knowing, doing, and feeling [article-based thesis, UiT The Arctic University of Norway]. Tromsø, Norway. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10037/27245
  • Nierenberg, E., Låg, T., & Dahl, T. I. (2021). Knowing and doing: The development of information literacy measures to assess knowledge and practice. Journal of Information Literacy, 15(2), 78–123.

Ellen Nierenberg
Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Hamar, Norway

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