Belief in importance of information literacy abilities among undergraduates. Underlying factors and analysis of variance

Abstract

<jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title> <jats:p>The purpose of this paper is to analyse the levels of belief in importance of information literacy abilities (BILAs) among an undergraduates’ sample. The aim is, on the one hand, to discover if there is a representative latent structure and, on the other hand, to know the existing differences according to external variables such as academic degree, course, gender and age.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title> <jats:p>A self-assessment questionnaire (IL-HUMASS) was applied to a sample of 749 students in English Studies, Translation and Interpreting and Education in Spain. Three types of statistical methods have been used to study the results: descriptive, factorial and analysis of variance.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title> <jats:p>Students’ levels of BILAs are acceptable but improvable. A framework of six underlying factors has been uncovered: evaluation-ethics, searching-using, technological processing, communication, dissemination and cognitive processing of the information. Significant differences on degree, course and gender have been found.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Practical implications</jats:title> <jats:p>This paper is intended for a broad academic sector, including faculty, librarians and students in higher education. The BILAs construct helps to improve the diagnosis of the perception of the BILAs. Its representation through a reduced number of latent factors simplifies results and possible applications. The results show that variations in degree, course and gender are significant and should be taken into account.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title> <jats:p>Although much has been written about information literacy abilities, we still know little about the importance students place on them. The BILAs construct is intended to improve that knowledge.</jats:p> </jats:sec>

Exploring the roles of information search and information evaluation literacy and pre-service teachers’ ICT self-efficacy in teaching

“…We also used the validated instrument of Pinto ( 2010 ), a simplified version of Information Literacy Humanities Social Sciences (IL-HUMASS), for perception of information literacy. IL-HUMASS has been used in a number of studies (Pinto, 2010 ; Pinto et al, 2019 , 2020 , 2021 ). This instrument allowed us to explore the perceptions of pre-service teachers about the phenomenon of information literacy.…”

Investigating factors that influence students’ ability to seek online bilingual scientific information

“…Another major limitation is that the gender distribution among participants is uneven (43 females and 17 males). Despite the fact that this females/males disparity has been evidenced in other studies that involve university students (Dolni car and Boh Podgornik, 2023;Pinto et al, 2020), we should acknowledge that this is a serious shortcoming that may lead to biased results. Additionally, data were collected from two specific academic tasks rather than a full repertoire of diverse tasks.…”

“…To start, it is important to clarify that the term “contextual factors” is one of various designations used to refer to “factors which reflect a particular context, characteristics unique to a particular group, community, society and individual” (Barzilai-Nahon et al , 2010, p. 644). Others include demographic characteristics (Creswell and Creswell, 2018), demographic parameters (Dolničar and Boh Podgornik, 2023), demographic variables (Aharony and Gazit, 2019), contextual variables (Pinto et al , 2020), social variables (Valverde-Crespo et al , 2022) and socio‐demographic information (Wang et al , 2023). Age and gender are perhaps the most common contextual factors examined in educational research (Cohen et al , 2018; Creswell, 2015).…”

Community College Students’ Perceptions of Their Information Literacy Needs

“…12 Pinto et al analyzed Spanish university students' beliefs in the importance of IL skills and found mixed results; of particular concern were that specific skills favored by instructional librarians, such as using a library catalog, using databases, and knowing information search strategies, were rated relatively low by these students. 13 Gross and Latham found that university students did not see the value of IL and hence IL instruction, nor did they view IL as a distinct skill set. 14 Kim and Shumaker found that students who take a course that includes a significant IL assignment rate their IL instruction and their own IL skills higher than those students without an IL assignment.…”