Students May Demonstrate Information Literacy Skills Following Library Instruction

Objective - To determine whether there is a correlation between information literacy skill development and participation in one or more library instruction sessions. Design - Learning outcomes assessment. Setting - A public research institution with multiple campuses. Subjects - 244 first-year undergraduates enrolled in a compulsory general education course during the 2014-2015 academic year. All subjects completed a series of library research assignments, followed by a final research paper. 65% of subjects participated in at least one library instruction session as part of the course, and 35% did not. Methods - The researchers convened six librarians and six instructors/faculty to score 244 research papers using a rubric designed to measure six possible information literacy learning outcomes. Evaluators established inter-rater reliability through a norming session, and each artifact was scored twice. The authors analyzed rubric scores using Ordinary Least Squares regression modeling. Main Results - Participation in a library instruction session correlated with higher rubric scores in three information literacy learning outcomes: argument building; source type integration; and ethical source citation. Conclusion - Students may achieve greater information literacy learning outcomes when they participate in course-integrated library instruction.