IL and ICT literacy correlations; A digital creative writing device #ECIL2023

More belated liveblogging from ECIL (Sheila here). I was presenting in a session this morning from a room with no wifi connection - I will post my liveblogs of the other talks in 2 posts, and Pam also blogged my talk, so that will be posted separately. First paper in the session was: Undergraduate Students’ Information Literacy in Relation to their ICT Proficiency and Psychological Characteristics presented by Danica Dolničar, coauthored with Bojana Boh Podgornik (University of Ljubljana). She started by talking about the frameworks used in their research: the Digicomp ICT framework and the ACRL framework, and noting that ICT literacy doesn’t automatically imply information literacy.
Dolničar introduced the research questions, which were exploring relationships such as between demographics and information literacy, or between the two literacies. They had a convenience sample of 498 students at the University of Ljubljana, with a preponderance of natural science students and female students, and administered three survey instruments (concerning IL, ICT, and motivation).
A few results were: In terms of information literacy / demographics, the only difference was between the 1st & 2nd years and the greater IL of 3rd & 4th years. In terms of software, only the use of general software correlated significantly with IL. The highest correlation of IL was with communication tools, and even more with confidence in using internet. In terms of motivation self-concept about learning, self-efficacy and self-concept about problem solving were correlated with IL and ICT. 

In the same session this morning was Information and Digital Literacies as Written Culture: The Case of a Digital Creative Writing Device presented by Béatrice Micheau. The context is an institutional framework to assess digital devices used in creative writing. The studied device is the Cub’edito from Short Edition. Ethnographic research was carried out with observations and interviews (examining educational use with young people and interviewing teachers, librarians, authors and (in focus group) students). The aim was to assess the device and explore the devices use and relationship with literacies. The device is a cube which enables you write, to exchange text, and to print a short text as a long paper ticket – this helps to surface the links between paper and screen “a covenant between a long term written culture and digital textual practices and norms”.
Also it has some aspects of documentation – e.g. allocating author, title. Micheau showed how the stories could be printed out and arranged or grouped (e.g. a haiku tree hung with poems; stories physically grouped in different ways). She talked about various aspects of reading and writing that were engaged in this project such as linguistic, semiotic, finding your place in the world, aesthetic aspects and socio-pragmatic aspects.
She concluded that we don’t have to indulge in “digital dualism” (seeing the the written and digital culture as separate) but rather that should examiine them together in order to understand literacy today. Micheau also referred to cultural “poaching” between everyday written culture and school culture, and between literacy, information literacy and digital literacy. The studied device can also be seen as an “action apparatus”.
Photo by Sheila Webber: bags of ECIL (each one had free chocolates!)

Information Literacy of university freshmen and differences in ICT use, internet confidence and motivation #ECIL2018

The second talk in the session I chaired this afternoon was Information Literacy of university freshmen and differences in ICT use, internet confidence and motivation presented by Danica Dolnicar. Dolnicar started by identifying that young students are not necessarily information literate. In Solvenia there is some provision for information/ICT literacy: there are curricula in primary and secondary schools which may consist of informatics or of library and information knowledge. However these curricula are not uniformly applied in schools, and also there are personal factors such motivation which can affect how students engage with ICT and IL.
The researchers were aiming to measure the overall IL level of a group of students and then compare the weaker and stronger students in various ways. They used the Information Literacy Test, the ICT Software Use Survey, the Internet Confidence Survey and the Self-concept/Self-efficacy/Motivation/Use of Learning strategies (i.e. 4 different existing survey instruments).
The sample was 126 freshmen students in the Faculty of Education. This data was gathered between 2014-2017. The questionnaire was administered under supervision.
Those with higher scores were assigned to the higher group, and the other half of the sample to the lower group. For information literacy, the highest difference between the 2 groups was in search, and legal and ethical issues were the weakest areas for both groups. There was a staitistically significant difference between the higher and lower group.

In terms of differences in ICT software use, the differences between the two groups was not significantly different statistically. As regards the differences in confidence on the internet, the biggest differences were in learning new software, presenting opinions and using discussion groups (where the lower group was weaker) and the last 2 were statistically significant. Finally, with the "Differences in self-concept" etc., students with lower IL scores relied more on external motivation: this was the element with statistically significant difference.
Some conclusions are summed up in the slides I show in the photos. Dolnicar concluded that differences might be attributed to inconsistent IL education at school, and also to personal factors e.g. motivation. They are following up by planning an appropriate educational intervention at freshman level.

Paper or Electronic: Preferences of Slovenian Students #ecil2015

The next paper in the "reading format" session at the European Conference on Information Literacy 2015 was Paper or Electronic: Preferences of Slovenian Students from Vlasta Zabukovec, coauthored with Polona Vilar.
This study was part of the multi-country study that I just blogged about: a 25 item survey carried out March-May 2015. The content addressed format preference, behaviour and attitudes, devices used.
120 male and 140 females responded from three universities in Slovenia. There was a strong preference for print format. 76% disagreed or strongly disagreed that e-textbooks were good. When they read the e-textbooks they did so on laptops and PCs more than anything else. The students agreed by a big majority (about 80%) that articles over 7 pages were read in print for preference. Language did not emerge as a factor affecting preference (this would mostly be Slovenian and English). Only about 5% agreed/strongly agreed that they preferred Slovenian material electronically (even a smaller percentage than for other languages). A majority annotated print items, and a smallminority annotated electronic items. In teh learning process, participants identified that print was easier for learning, focusing and reviewing.
There were obvious implications: i.e. that students still want to use printed materials, although there could be scope for developing students' knowledge/skills about electronic publications.
In a question afterwards, it emerged that students did like convenient, free online publications: but then they wanted to print them out.

New Issue: Information Research: Buddhism, workplace competencies, blogging, cancer patients

The open access journal Information Research (volume 20 no 2) has been published. Articles include:
- Marta Zárraga-Rodríguez and Maria Jesús Álvarez Information practices and competences that evidence information capability in a company
- Nicole M. Gaston, Dan G. Dorner and David Johnstone Spirituality and everyday information behaviour in a non-Western context: sense-making in Buddhist Laos
- Kalyani Ankem Assessing cancer patients' health information needs: a standardized approach
- Jenny Bronstein and Maria Knoll Blogging motivations of women suffering from infertility
- Polona Vilar, Primoz Juznic and Tomaz Bartol Information behaviour of Slovenian researchers: investigation of activities, preferences and characteristics
- Meng-Hsiang Hsu, Chun-Ming Chang, Hsien-Cheng Lin and Yi-Wan Lin Determinants of continued use of social media: the perspectives of uses and gratifications theory and perceived interactivity.
- M. Asim Qayyum and David Smith Learning from student experiences for online assessment tasks.
http://www.informationr.net/ir/20-2/infres202.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: wild strawberries in my garden, June 2015