Student Information Literacy Survey Results Now Freely Available

Survey Developed by Librarians and Sponsored by Credo Finds Students Lack Basic Skills Critical to Lifelong Success

April 8, 2013, Boston, Oxford –   Credo, the industry leader for information skills solutions, today announced that the results of an information literacy survey of over 1,500 students from more than 400 institutions worldwide are now freely available.  Anyone may register for a free copy, along with a paper authored by Dr. Allen McKiel, Dean of Library Services at Western Oregon University at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Survey_Results.  Additionally, Credo will be unveiling results at ACRL during a breakfast discussion on 11 April 2013. 

“The students’ answers were quite revealing,” said Mike Sweet, Credo’s CEO.  “All of the questions were submitted by librarians and many addressed themes that other information skills studies have attempted to address. By layering librarian-suggested questions with pedagogical theories related to assessment, we were able to see exactly where students fall short in the application of information skills. We hope that these results empower librarians to help students in this key area of need.” 

“Information literacy skills are essential for successfully articulating college assignments and even more critical to effective civic and workforce participation,” commented Dr. McKiel. “The survey provides a window into student values, perceptions and uses of information resources, which includes how they find out about resources, and where they go for help. The survey results are particularly relevant to the provision of instruction to improve student understanding of and skill in accessing and using information resources.”

Among other key findings, the survey found:

• 74% of students gave “reliability” of sources the highest importance, but 24% did not value a peer-reviewed journal over a memoir as an authoritative source.

• Just over 80% of students feel prepared to conduct research, but only 16% feel very prepared to do research.

• Though many students are aware of the wealth of resources available through the library, 69% of students use open web source regularly or almost always while conducting research.