Assessment of Student’s Information Retrieval and Using Skills: Çankırı Karatekin University Example

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to measure the information literacy skills and awareness of the first-year students studying at Çankırı Karatekin University Turkish Language and Literature Department. The sample of the study conducted in this context consists of 79 students from the Turkish Language and Literature Department of Çankırı Karatekin University in total. Before the study, in order to check the students’ prior knowledge, the information literacy scale pre-test was applied and it was determined that the prior knowledge of the groups was equivalent. In this study, in which the experimental design method was applied, the control group was lectured by the traditional method, while the experimental group was taught integrated with information literacy, and the results obtained from the pre and post-tests of the control and experimental groups were compared. In addition, within the scope of the study, after a 120-minute lecture was given to both control and experimental groups, a research performance task was assigned, and written performance tasks were collected. The research performance tasks prepared by the students were evaluated based on the rubric prepared by the researchers according to the basics of information literacy. As a result of the study, it was determined that information literacy education did not develop the expected competence on the basis of the performance task in the experimental group, but there was a statistically positive significant difference between the pretest and post-test scores of the experimental group, and thus the awareness of the students about information literacy increased. However, although the control group students got higher scores than the experimental group students on the basis of the performance task, it was found that there was no statistically significant difference between the pre-test scores and the post-test scores after the training. As a result of the study, it was concluded that the 120 minutes of education integrated with information literacy increased students’ awareness on this issue, but it was insufficient in developing information literacy skills. Spreading the information literacy integrated course education to a wider time, supported with practice, homework and different methods is suggested.