Chapter 7: Summary, conclusion, and recommendations
3.6 Information Literacy
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• how to recognise and interpret the idea held by the author of a text;
• how to distinguish the relevant authors and institutions in their thematic area; and
• how to organise learning according to learners’ level of previous knowledge and the time they have available (Sales, Pinto and Fernández-Ramos, 2016:4-5).
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Information Literacy is an understanding and set of abilities information users require to recognise when information is needed by providing them the abilities to locate, evaluate and use the needed information effectively (Deshmukh and Kulkarni, 2016:10). Information literacy instructions are noted to “remain efficient, to guarantee a better outlook for graduates in their lifelong search and use of information”(Al-Aufi, Al-Azri, and Al-Hadi, 2017:2). It has been found that, the ability to develop the IL skills of learners depends on learners “having a certain base level of ICT knowledge and being fairly confident using the Internet” (Gosling and Nix, 2011:99). It is therefore important for computer literacy training of learners to “precede IL training” (Naido and Raju, 2012:34).
The role ofIL in learning cannot be overemphasised. It helps in lifelong learning through abilities since it contributes to the development of the information skills needed by the information user to handle the information technology such as the Internet used by him/her to access and retrieve information (Lavate, 2016:110). Learners, due to their studies and learning are found to access online information frequently (Leeder and Shah, 2016; Kolowich, 2011). However, literature have shown the reality that learners are not as information literate as is hoped, with instructors overwhelmingly believing that achieving a state of information literacy is a laudable goal towards learners’ effective information acquisition (Sandercock, 2016:6). It has also been found that, many learners enter high schools without a strong foundation in information literacy competence (Davis and Watson, 2017:30), thus the need for information literacy instruction to be taken seriously at high schools.
An objective of IL programme is the “development of skills and competencies” that enable information users to recognise an information gap and “construct alternative strategies for information” retrieval and use (Lavate, 2016:111).Deshmukh and Kulkarni (2016:109) asserted that effective IL programme helps:
• information users to become independent learners;
• information users to develop information Literacy skills;
• information users to acquire knowledge from multiple sources;
• make the common people part of information technology;
• librarians to develop, access, and improve their skills and competencies; and
• to increase information accessibility and use.
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Information literacy therefore empowers the ability to access, evaluate, and use information by the individuals in the information society (Lavante, 2016:110). It has been noted that, access does not only refer to owning a device but also “having the operational knowledge and essential skills required to use it”. The understanding, analysis and evaluation of information resources is therefore the information processing skills that information users apply “when encountering an infinite supply” of Internet messages or information (Kim and Yang, 2016:442). This implies that, it is important for information users, in addition to owning devices, acquire skills and competences through IL training that will enable them effectively access information.
It is important for Information Literacy instructors and other stakeholders to be mindful of the fact that information users have varying competences in “determining the credibility and accuracy, and making the best use of information” (Al-Aufi, Al-Azri, and Al-Hadi, 2017:1). Thus, the idea of IL training should not be described as a “thing” but rather something we “do” (Elmborg, 2012:78).
The current age we find ourselves is competitive and the importance of IL increases day by day, since we find ourselves in the age of information explosion making the role of librarians very important since the “librarian has to organise Information Literacy programme” for information users (Deshmukh and Kulkarni, 2016:107). Although, libraries have been supporting academic institutions on effective access to information for teaching and learning, “there is a mounting case that librarians should play a more significant role in the development of information literacy skills”
(Johnson et al., 2015). Librarians however, “can only play a more significant role in the classroom”
when teachers, instructors, management and leadership “all agree that information literacy is, in fact, a laudable goal” (Sandercock, 2016:3).
A study by Lwoga (2013:7) in Tanzania revealed that librarians’ role in information literacy training improved the IL skills of students year-over-year. However, in order for librarians to work and collaborate with instructors to teach information literacy skills and produce information literate learners, librarians have to understand what faculty and instructors “perceive are the information literacy competencies” of their learners, “what information literacy skills” the instructors are teaching them already and “what skills” the instructors perceive the learners require the most assistance with (Sandercock, 2016:3).
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All academic institutional stakeholders need to embrace IL in the early stages of learners’ academic life, since “it is too late to wait until secondary school to teach these skills” (McFarlane and Roche, 2003:156). Students’ educational level has been found to have impact on their information literacy skills, since students in higher levels possess higher literacy skills than those in lower levels (Kousar and Mahmood, 2015:56). This stems from the fact that, many students were not introduced to IL in their early stages at school.
A good IL programme requires a complete paradigm shift that will “foster sustainable consistency and alignment throughout the curriculum” (Bruch and Wilkinson, 2012:13-14). Infusing IL “into the curriculum is long, hard, and often frustrating work”, since IL tends to continually evolve and is simply not achieved quickly; “it takes time, and not only chronological time, but an understanding of institutional time” (Baker and Gladis 2016:337-351). Information Literacy concentrates on “cognitive and transferable skills, such as problem solving, evaluation and communication skills” because it teaches skills and competencies for using the wide range of information tools such as the Internet and other primary sources in moulding information solution to users’ informational problems (Lavante, 2016:110-111).
The need for IL programmes is therefore very essential due to rapid increases in the stream of information because of the information revolution that the Internet has provided us with (Lavate, 2016:111). Instructors believe that their learners’ “weakest skill is in the ability to critically evaluate and subsequently, compare information sources for credibility” when accessing information from the Internet (Sandercock, 2016:6). However, information literacy keeps changing over time as the Internet continues to be in constant state of evolution and the use of technologies keep improving with people becoming more technologically driven (Whitmore, Agarwal and Xu, 2015). Therefore, there is the need for Information Literacy programmes to have a holistic approach by assisting learners to improve all their weaknesses in identifying their information need, selecting the relevant information, and using the right information in solving problems as well as meeting their information needs (Lanning and Turner, 2010).
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The idea of improving learners’ IL skills through IL training at school is important since learners are taught the ability to utilise Internet resources efficiently through IL programmes and this helps them to effectively access the wealth of materials available on the Internet (Sandercock, 2016:19).
Integrating IL training in school curricula is therefore the way to go. For example, a study conducted by Malliari et al. (2014) among high school learners in Greece recommended the need to incorporate information literacy instruction into secondary education, with information literacy learning outcomes embedded in the high school curriculum to improve learners IL skills. This is in support of IFLA’s Guidelines on Information Literacy for Lifelong Learning (2010:27) which prescribes the need for schools to develop information literacy programme that is part of the curricula since information literacy requires sustained development throughout all formal educational levels: primary, secondary, and tertiary. IFLA’s Guidelines on Information Literacy for Lifelong Learning (2010:27) also highlighted the need for school librarians “to participate in a teaching course or recognised qualification to be part of the institutional information literacy endeavour”.
Studies have also pointed out that gender to some extent has a link to information literacy. For example, Liu and Sun’s (2012) findings indicated that males were better than females in three aspects of information literacy, namely information consciousness, information competency and information ethics. However, to be more effective, an information literacy programme should take into consideration certain factors and “for better results, the instruction should be of relevance to learners’ lives, learning styles, and information requirements” (Malliari et al., 2014:272).
Information Literacy should not be observed as just learning facts but it is about learning to learn a skill that lasts for a lifetime (Sandercock, 2016:23). It therefore exists in the form of an
“intellectual framework for lifelong learning” (Bundy, 2004:11). The connection between information literacy on one hand and learners’ performance as well as academic achievement on the other hand cannot be over-looked. A study conducted by Wong and Cmor (2011) revealed that, Information Literacy instruction correlates positively with learner's performance. This implies that, learners’ inability to retrieve information to satisfy their information needs could be linked to lack of effective information literacy instruction. A possible explanation to this relatively low level of search competence among high school learners “may be that they acquired searching skills on their
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own, without any formal training, and as a result, they used the simplest and most common techniques for retrieving information (Malliari et al., 2014:277).