Initial Development of the Perception of Information Literacy Scale (PILS)

Abstract

The ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education has provided academic librarians a guiding document to facilitate the development of information literacy skills in students. Despite widespread adoption of the Framework in academic libraries, a lack of valid and reliable Framework-based scales for assessing students’ knowledge practices and dispositions hinders further understanding of student information literacy. The current article describes the development and testing of the Perception of Information Literacy Scale (PILS). The participants in this study were 443 graduate students. The resulting scale is made up of 36 items that measure seven distinct constructs of information literacy. The subscales of the PILS had good estimates of internal consistency and showed evidence of convergent and discriminant validity. PILS allows academic librarians to measure how students perceive their own information literacy knowledge practices and dispositions and could be useful for outreach, instructional design, and assessment activities.