Is information literacy ability, and metacognition of that ability, related to interest, gender or education level? A cross-sectional study of higher education students

Abstract

How information literate are students in higher education, and how accurate is their metacognition related to that ability? Are students’ perceived needs to learn more and their level of interest in becoming information literate related to their pursuit of information literacy (IL) skill development? First-year undergraduates, master’s, and PhD students (N = 760) took an objective IL test and estimated their scores both before and after the test. IL ability, as well as students’ estimation of their IL ability, increased with higher education experience and IL test experience, though also varied notably within groups. Low-performers tended to overestimate their abilities, while high-performers tended to underestimate them—both evidence of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Furthermore, gender comparisons revealed that men tended to estimate higher, and more accurate, scores than women. Finally, PhD students reported greater interest in becoming information literate than undergraduates. Although undergraduates felt a greater need to learn more, PhD students were more inclined to pursue IL growth. For both groups, interest in becoming information literate correlated far more with their likelihood to invest effort into developing IL competencies than their perceived need to know more. What implications might these findings have for how we conceptualize the teaching of IL?