Digital information literacy, self-directed learning, and personal knowledge management in critical readers: Application of IDC Theory

The usefulness of self-directed learning ability in education has been demonstrated in previous studies. However, there has been much less understanding of the importance of digital information literacy, as well as how to manage these abilities and knowledge, and their effects on learning processes, especially in the current situation of digital education dominance and the necessity of interest creation in students. In order to address such needs and to evaluate students, as well as determine the effectiveness of the Interest-Driven Creator (IDC) loops, this study was conducted. In this study, 164 English language students were asked to participate in the pre-test, treatment, and post-test processes, while the treatments for the IDC group were developed in the form of interest-creation-habit triple loops. The results represented that IDC hybrid instruction was more effective in strengthening digital information literacy and personal knowledge management; and the IDC hybrid group outperformed the non-IDC hybrid group in terms of self-directed learning skills. These findings also revealed that to develop self-directed learning in critical readers, in addition to digital skills and how to manage and apply acquired knowledge, learning instructions (i.e., interest-creation-habit loops) have been effective. The IDC-hybrid group also identified the features of participation, perception-interest and facility-opportunity as the most significant and tangible ones.