Assessing the Effectiveness of an Information Literacy Instruction Course in Teaching Additional Skills

Library and information science (LIS) graduates work in a variety of jobs that require well-developed information literacy (IL) skills. They not only apply IL skills in everyday interactions with patrons but also use their conceptual understanding to design instructional programs and interventions. In this small-scale, pilot study the instructor of an MLIS (Master of Library and Information Science) elective course on information literacy instruction included a pre- and post-course exercise to better understand how effectively conceptual understanding was delivered alongside content focused on instruction. The ability to define or articulate the meaning of IL is not an explicit learning outcome in the course, so the activity measured how students’ abilities to define IL changed over the course of the semester. At the end of the course, a majority of students demonstrated some or clear growth in understanding of information literacy through their ability to define it, and these pilot data suggest that a user instruction course based around information literacy also improves students’ ability to articulate and define IL.