Presented at LILAC 2022

1. The development of students as
information literate individuals
Results from an 86% complete
PhD in Information Literacy
Ellen Nierenberg – PhD student
Tove I. Dahl, Professor of psychology – main supervisor

2. Tromsø: 69.6o
north latitude

3. January 6th, 2021: Storming the Capitol
Photo: Wikipedia Commons

4. Gaps
- Longitudinal studies on the development of IL over time
- Relationships between knowing, doing, and feeling
- Students’ self-awareness of their IL levels
- The role of interest in IL development

5. Main research question: How do students grow as
information literate individuals in higher
education?
1. How can we measure students’ IL knowledge (KNOW), skills (DO),
and interest in being or becoming information literate? (FEEL)?
1. How self-aware are students of their own IL levels and how does
that motivate them to learn more about IL?
1. In which ways do students grow and change as IL individuals over
a 3-year BA-program?

6. MEASURES

7. 1. How can we measure students’ IL knowledge (KNOW), skills (DO),
and interest in being or becoming information literate (FEEL)?

8. IL
Bundy (2004). Australian and New Zealand Information Literacy Framework (ANZIL)
SCONUL
(2011).
The
SCONUL
Seven
Pillars
of
Information
Literacy
ACRL
(2015).
Framework
for
Information
Literacy
for
Higher
Education
UNESCO (2013). Global
Media and Information
Literacy Assessment
Framework
Eisenberg, Berkowitz
(1998/2000). The Big6

9. Measuring IL
Knowing
Doing
Tromsø Information Literacy Test (TILT)
What characterizes a scholarly article?
• It is written by a researcher from a college,
university or other research institution.
• It is published in a printed, English-language
journal.
• It is written in plain language that everyone
can understand.
• It is reviewed by independent experts in the
field before being published.
Source use
Source
evaluation
Source evaluation measure (annotated
bibliography)
• Quality
• Variety
• Frequency
Source use measure (rubric)
1. Are academic sources used to support
arguments?
2. Are sources cited in the text when
necessary?
3. Are the in-text citations written in correct
APA-style?
4. Is the reference list written in correct APA-
style?
5. Are all in-text citations listed in the reference
list, and vice versa?

10. Measuring Interest
Interest TRIQ
Tromsø Interest Questionnaire (TRIQ)
Based on Hidi and Renninger (2006)

11. Measuring Interest
Interest TRIQ
Tromsø Interest Questionnaire (TRIQ) subscales
General interest
How interested are you in being an information
literate person?
Situation dependence
Without others, I would lose interest in being or
becoming an information literate person.
Positive affect
How little or much do you experience these
feelings in relation to being or becoming an
information literate person? (pleasure, happiness,
interest, engagement)
Competence (Level, Aspiration)
Overall I feel I am an information literate person.
I want to learn more about information literacy.
Meaningfulness
To be an information literate person is very useful
for me.

12. Interviews
Focus
groups
Indi-
vidual
IL Knowing
Transformational IL learning
Identity as an information literate person
IL Interest (feeling)
IL Doing

13. Data
collection
Materials Participants/Cohort Data
collection
Knowing Pilot IL test Undergraduate students from 2 universities - Apr. ‘19
Pilot think-aloud - 3 first-year Bachelor students
- 2 final-year high school students
- June ‘19
IL test Masters and PhD students from several universities - Spring ‘20
IL test + 3 questions about interest
in IL, need/intent to learn
Bachelor and PhD students from several universities - Fall ‘20
Feeling Pilot interest questionnaire Psych. undergraduates at different levels - May ‘19
Focus group interviews Psych. students in last semester of Bachelor study. Cohort
‘18
- Spring ‘21
Individual interviews Psych. students in the last semester of Bachelor study.
Cohort ‘19
- Spring ‘22
Knowing and
feeling
Survey with IL test and interest
questionnaire
Psych. Bachelor-students, cohort ’19 (IL instruction fall
‘19). Longitudinal 3 yrs.
- Sep. ’19
(pretest)
- Nov. ’19
- Apr. ‘21
- March ‘22
Other Bachelor students, cohort ‘19 - Sep. ’19
- Nov. ’19
Psych. Bachelor students, cohort ’20 (IL instruction spring
‘21). Longitudinal 2 yrs.
- Aug. ’20
(pretest)
- May ‘21
- May ‘22
Doing Assignments
- Source evaluation
- Source use
Psych. students: Cohort ‘19 - Fall ’19
- Spring ‘22
Psych. students: Cohort ‘20 - Spring ‘21

14. https://site.uit.no/troils/

15. SELF-
AWARENESS

16. How self-aware are students of their own IL levels and how
does that influence their motivation to learn more about IL?

17. Actual score Estimated score 760 BA, MA and PhD students

18. Analyses of variance (ANOVA’s) between:
1. higher education groups (BA/MA/PhD) and gender (M/F)
2. higher education groups and performance level (low/high)
1. Do students estimate their scores differently?
• Is there a main effect for gender?
• Is there a main effect for education level?
• Are there any interactions?
2. Do low-performing students estimate their scores differently from high-performing students?
• Is there a main effect for performance level?
• Is there a main effect for education level?
• Are there any interactions?

19. Actual score: 14.80
Estimated score: 13.79
n = 471
Actual score: 14.83
Estimated score: 14.96
n = 227
Gender

20. MA
BA
Actual score: 12.71
Estimated score: 11.95
n = 330
Actual score: 16.06
Estimated score: 15.50
n = 196
Ph
D
Actual score: 16.89
Estimated score: 16.43
n = 234
Education level

21. Low scorer
Actual score: 9.72
Estimated score (BA): 10.20
n = 137
High scorer
Actual score: 15.43
Estimated score (BA): 13.48
n = 145
Performance level

22. Analyses of variance (ANOVA’s) between:
1. higher education groups (BA/MA/PhD) and gender (M/F)
2. higher education groups and performance level (low/high)
1. Do students estimate their scores differently?
• Is there a main effect for gender? Yes, F(1, 741) = 10.44, p = 0.001, η2 = 0.01
• Is there a main effect for education level? No
• Are there any interactions? Yes, F(2, 741) = 4.38, p < 0.05, η2 = 0.01
2. Do low-performing students estimate their scores differently from high-performing students?
• Is there a main effect for performance level? Yes, F(1, 612) = 66.87, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.10
• Is there a main effect for education level? No
• Are there any interactions? No

23. Need to know Interes
t
Future intention
to learn more
r = 0.48
r = 0.15
n = 124

24. GROWTH

25. In which ways do students grow and change as
IL individuals over a 3-year BA-program?
Nierenberg, E., Låg, T., Solberg, M. & Dahl, T. I. (in progress). Knowing, feeling
and doing: A longitudinal study of students’ information literacy development.
1. How do KNOW, DO and FEEL – and their interaction – change over a 3-year
BA program?
2. How do students’ perceptions of themselves as information literate people
evolve? Does transformative learning (a change in identity) occur?

26. Knowing
Feeling
Doing
First year Third/last year

27. The contribution of my research
• Measures
• Self-awareness and motivation to learn more
• Growth and transformation

28. Future research
• Effect of IL instruction:
• 1-shot vs. integrated/embedded
• 1st vs. 2nd semester
• Growth:
• 1 🡪 2
• 2 🡪 3
• Case study: follow individual students over 5 years

29. Main research question: How do students grow
as information literate individuals?
1. How can we measure IL knowledge (KNOW), skills (DO), and
students’ interest in being or becoming information literate?
(FEEL)?
2. How self-aware are students of their own IL levels and how does
that motivate them to learn more about IL?
3. In which ways do students grow and change as IL individuals over a
3-year BA-program?

30. Understanding the development of information literacy in
higher education: Knowing, feeling, and doing

31. https://blogg.uit.no/eni081

32. List of articles
1. Nierenberg, E., Låg, T. & Dahl, T. I. (2021). Knowing and doing: The development of information
literacy measures to assess knowledge and practice. Journal of Information Literacy, 15(2), 78–
123. https://doi.org/10.11645/15.2.2795
2. Dahl, T. I., & Nierenberg, E. (2021). Here’s the TRIQ: The Tromsø Interest Questionnaire based
on the Four-Phase Model of Interest Development. Frontiers in Education, 6(402), 1-17.
https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.716543
3. Nierenberg, E., & Dahl, T. I. (2021). Is information literacy ability, and metacognition of that
ability, related to interest, gender or education level? A cross-sectional study of higher
education students. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science.
https://doi.org/10.1177/09610006211058907
4. Nierenberg, E., Låg, T., Solberg, M. & Dahl, T. I. (in progress). Knowing, feeling and doing: A
longitudinal study of students’ information literacy development.

33. Thank you!
Ellen Nierenberg, Tove I. Dahl

34. Ellen Nierenberg
PhD student in information literacy
UiT The Arctic University of Norway
Email: ellen.nierenberg@uit.no
Telephone: +47 99435850
Twitter: @EllenNierenberg
Tove I. Dahl
Professor in Educational
Psychology
UiT The Arctic University of
Norway
Email: tove.dahl@uit.no
Telephone: +47 77645456