LILAC 2014 Poster

1. How does information literacy teaching affect a
person's self-efficacy?
Dr Geoff Walton, Northumbria University
geoff.walton@northumbria.ac.uk
Eleanor Johnston, Staffordshire University
e.johnston@staffs.ac.uk
Step-up to HE
‘This is a short study skills course with
some tailored subject content delivered at
a UK university. The programme seeks to
give potential students the opportunity to
experience studying in Higher Education,
especially those who feel they may not
have the right skills for this endeavour.
This is part of a ‘Widening Participation’
initiative to encourage students from non-
traditional back-grounds to consider
attending university. The 12 week
programme contains a 3 week
information literacy intervention.
Information literacy intervention Method
A quantitative analysis using a
questionnaire containing 10
statements which was administered
to participants before and after
delivery of the taught sessions. The
questionnaire was based on
Bandura’s original self-efficacy
statements (Bandura, 2006) with an
equal number of specific information
literacy statements added.
Findings
The findings at this stage proved to be
very mixed. Questionnaire responses
to statements relating specifically to
information literacy tended to show a
positive affect (See Q3) which is
statistically significant. For the more
‘general’ self-efficacy statements (see
Q6) some scores showed a positive
affect but there were also some scores
that showed a decrease (statistical
significance not established).
Future research
More detailed research is required to fully establish patterns in the data.
Furthermore, to establish the veracity of these findings the study will be
repeated over the next two academic years.
Hypothesis
Participants involved in Step-up to
HE (n=20 in first sample but only 11
completions) will gain a statistically
significantly higher score in the self-
efficacy post information literacy
intervention questionnaire than in
the pre-intervention questionnaire.
The 12 week programme
contains a 3 week
information literacy face-to-
face teaching intervention
based on the ‘three spheres
of information literacy’
(Walton & Cleland, 2013,
p23). Week one focusses on
finding information, the
second on making
judgements about
information and the third
on using information for an
assignment.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 S9 S10 S11
Pre
Post
Q3: I can make sound judgements about
information and evaluate it for its quality
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 S9 S10 S11
Pre
Post
Q6: It is easy for me to stick to my aims and
accomplish my goals
Implications
Until more results can be gathered to
establish consistency it is argued that
the hypothesis cannot be upheld.
However, the results highlight an
interesting trend.
Early indications show that the
intervention might have a positive effect
on participants’ belief in their own
information literacy, such as the ability
to evaluate information. Conversely the
results presented here show that any
effect is far less certain regarding their
self-efficacy more generally.
References
Walton, G. & Cleland, J. (2013). Strand 2: becoming an independent learner. In, Secker, J. & Coonan, E.
(eds.). Rethinking information literacy: a practical framework for teaching. London: Facet.
Bandura, A. (2006). Guide for constructing self-efficacy scales. In, Pajares, F. & Urdan, T. (eds.). Self-
Efficacy Beliefs of Adolescent. Information Age Publishing.