Abstract
Background:
Information literate students with a good understanding of science are regarded as an important a pool of future successful professionals. The study explored correlations between information literacy (IL) and scientific literacy (SL) of university students, and analyzed their achievements according to Bloom’s cognitive categories of remembering, understanding and applying knowledge. A theoretical connection between IL standards and SL competencies was exposed.
Material and methods:
An information literacy test and a science literacy test, derived from the PISA 2006 science scale, were used for assessment.
Results:
The results showed a significant moderate positive correlation between students’ SL and IL. Students with better understanding of science were more successful in all three cognitive levels of IL, and students with higher SL scores were better in application of IL knowledge. A specialized credit-bearing IL course with active learning significantly improved the IL level of all students, most notably in applying IL knowledge, and thus reduced the initial IL disparities between students with low and high SL.
Conclusions:
The study brought the realization that IL of university students depend on their SL obtained in previous education, however, a well-designed university IL course contributes towards higher cognitive levels of IL for all students.
License
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Article Type: Research Article
EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed, Volume 13, Issue 7, July 2017, 3869-3891
https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2017.00762a
Publication date: 15 Jun 2017
Article Views: 2602
Article Downloads: 1638
Open Access References How to cite this article