Health information literacy

Thanks to Michael Lorenzen for bringing this paper to my attention: it is available full text on the web. Ivanitskaya, L, O'Boyle, I and Casey, A. (2006) "Health Information Literacy and Competencies of Information Age Students: Results From the Interactive Online Research Readiness Self-Assessment (RRSA) ." Journal of medical internet research, 8(2). http://www.jmir.org/2006/2/e6/

"The Research Readiness Self-Assessment (RRSA) is based on the [ACRL] Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, and it measures proficiency in obtaining health information, evaluating the quality of health information, and understanding plagiarism. [...] This study aimed to measure the proficiency of college-age health information consumers in finding and evaluating electronic health information; to assess their ability to discriminate between peer-reviewed scholarly resources and opinion pieces or sales pitches; and to examine the extent to which they are aware of their level of health information competency." 308 students participated. As well as being asked some multiple choice questions and doing some short exercsies, the students were asked "How do you rate your research skills?" . "Most respondents (84%) believed that their research skills were good, very good, or excellent. Students’ self-perceptions of skill tended to increase with increasing level of education. Self-reported skills were weakly correlated with actual skill level, operationalized as the overall RRSA score..."

Photo by Sheila Webber: ground of Schonbrunn Palace, Vienna, December 2007.