Self-efficacy tests are helpful in the acquisition of information literacy. A study in first year bachelor students.

Introduction

The  American Library Association (ALA 2000) defines Information Literacy (IL) as “a set of abilities requiring individuals to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information”. These information and communication skills are increasingly essential to succeed in academic studies. The best possible instruments to acquire the skills are still at debate. The personal recognition of his or her information needs has been recognized as a powerful drive in the building up of the required capacities of the students. The possible role of repeated self-efficacy (SE) testing in information literacy therefore merits further evaluation.

Study environment and population

The present study population is a group of 50 Bachelor students enrolled in a curricular course of information resources of the first bachelor year of Biomedical Sciences at Ghent University. The IL-course requires 15 hours class teaching and 15 hours active PC-based group instruction. The study population was selected from a cohort of 142 first timers. Students who had to repeat their first year were excluded, as the first year learning process of the same materials could influence their ratings. Furthermore we used for the present analysis only these students who participated trustfully in the other evaluative activities organized in the cohort to permit multifactor analysis. Full testing included the first scale (GEN-ILSE) developed by Kurbanoglu, Akkoyunlu & Umay (2006), the list of  10 IL skills ( from basic to advanced), important for the biomedical context (BIO-ILSE) developed specifically for the course, pre- en post-Progress Test on Information Literacy (PTIL) especially designed for the Faculty of Medicine of Ghent University and finally the participation in the first semester examination session. For more details on these tests, see methodology section. Full and trustable results of all tests were found in 50 students, the final study group. For the present study only the results on information literacy self-efficacy (ILSE) will be considered.

Research Questions

Applying the SE-tests twice, in the beginning and the end of the course, made us formulate two research questions. First, we focused on the changes between the first and second test to study the influence of the learning process on the results of the self-efficacy tests. Secondly we wanted to know if – inversely – the self-efficacy tests improve the learning process and the examination results.

Methods

To assess the ILSE competences two different questionnaires were used. First we used the test for assessment of non-specific or general information literacy self-efficacy (GEN-ILSE) developed by Kurbanoglu, Akkoyunlu & Umay (2006). The scale is composed of 7 factors and 28 items. The factors of the scale are determined as “defining the need for information”, “initiating the search strategy”, “locating and accessing the resources”, “assessing and comprehending the information”, “interpreting, synthesizing, and using the information”, “communicating the information” and “evaluating the product and process”. These skills are mandatory in a general context of IL or education. 

Secondly we administered a SE-questionnaire on the specific IL- needs in Biomedical Sciences (BIO-ILSE). This second test evaluates 10 additional IL skills (from basic to advanced), important for the biomedical context. The personal degree of confidence is evaluated on a scale of 0–100. Students were confident they could answer without inhibitions, because their results would not be taken in account in their study results, and the results would not be communicated to the examiners before the end of the examination period. Both ILSE-tests were administered at the beginning (pre-SE) of the academic year and at the end of the course (post-SE). The participation to the tests was on a voluntary base, as required by the ethical committee of the institution.

The pre- en post-SE questionnaires were administered together with a pre- en post-Progress Test on Information Literacy (PTIL) designed specifically towards the educational outputs of the Faculty of Medicine of Ghent University. The PTIL-test consists of 30 questions and measures the basic to advanced skills of IL within the context of medical and health studies. The test has been developed to monitor the evolution of the students over all years of their degrees.

Lastly, the examination results of the course were used to assess the final outputs of the students.  

Results

Within the limited time context of the EAHIL meeting, we present here only these results relevant to the two specific research questions. Also, the results are not yet complete, and given the number of factors studies will require further analysis. Comparison of selected questions of the pre- and post course ILSE tests are shown in table 1. These results suggest that the summation of the results of all students for most factors show higher confidence in the post-ILSE questionnaire. However, major individual differences are noted. (Table 1)

In the first item (“Limit search strategies by subject, language and date “), the confidence of students, after intervention, is prominently higher. More than half of the students report a scale of confidence of 81% or more at the end of the course. Three students even feel then 100% confident. Within the course, examples were worked out and self-evaluated exercises were offered. So the degree of confidence in the use of limits in search strategies reflects the true acquisition of the skill.

In the second item (“Write a research paper”), almost no changes were noted. The scale of SE has changed for 43 students, but the general degree of confidence stays very low, 32 of the 50 students have a SE lower as 50%. These results are no surprise, as writing a research paper can be seen as an advanced IL skill and the required competences were not taught in this first bachelor course.

For the third item (“Define the information I need”) a remarkable pattern is noted. Sixty percent of the  students feel less confident to define the information they need. This means that during the course they acknowledged that this competence was more difficult to obtain than they thought before the course.

The last item (“Confidence in the use of web of science”) reflects the impact of active learning and hands-on training. Confidence in the use of the database has increased in the large majority.

 Also other IL-skills specific to the biomedical curriculum gave the same increase in confidence level of the student population, although nobody still reported “full” confidence. Examples of these comparable items are: the use of PubMed, MeSH and factual databases

The results of the 2 ILSE-questionnaires correspond with the results of the PTIL and the final examination. It can therefore be concluded that the study population completed the ILSE-questionnaire fairly and the data can be seen as a good reflection of the ILSE of this group.

Discussion

Bandura ( 1977) defined self-efficacy as a belief in one’s own capabilities to organize and execute the course of action required to attain a goal. In general terms, SE is a basic human belief in one’s ability to successfully perform a task or a performance. The belief in his own efficacies and capabilities seems more important to the user than the true level of his capabilities. SE is an important player in today’s information-based society. Information literacy self-efficacy, this is the perception of someone’s own capabilities, is a meaningful factor in becoming an information literate person. High SE will determine how resilient students will be and how much effort they will expend on an activity. Students being self-assured are less put off to use new information sources and will not give up when encountering a problem in their search strategies. Persistence or resilience is crucial for information problem solving, self-regulated learning and lifelong learning (Kurbanoglu 2006). IL-training should be incorporated early in the curricula (Kingsley 2011), so it can help students to build up their competencies and SE. The context or specific domain wherein SE is evaluated is considered to be important, as an individual can be more or less confident according the discipline, domain or other situational difference.

Educational intervention activates the process of learning and self-learning (Kiliç-Cakmak 2010). This results in the development of critical thinking and the acquisition of expertise. On the other hand we noticed students can overestimate their abilities.  We note three different developments in the studied ILSE:

1. Educational intervention on search strategies and specific content related IL univocally increased self-efficacy . The target of the acquisition of intermediate IL-skills – according to the ALA definitions - is achieved in our students.
2. The decrease of ILSE in the case of defining the information needed, a basic IL skill, shows the educational value of repeated SE-testing. By the beginning of the course, the students did clearly not realize the meaning of the item and overestimated their competence. At the end of the course there is awareness of the complexity of the item. This consciousness will help students for further IL- training and motivate them to become more confident in the specific skill by more practice and self-study.
3. Finally, the questionnaire proposed questions related to advanced IL-competences. For these items, the SE was low and stayed low. It can be hypothesized that the confrontation of the student with his own perceptions of competence, will work as a trigger. This can be helpful in further IL-development.

From our data it can be concluded that repeated SE-tests are a useful educational tool in the acquisition of IL. Especially the post-course SE-assessment reflects a realistic measure for the degree of IL attained by the student. SE-tests enhance a critical attitude of the student and therefore could motivate the student for autonomous lifelong learning.