Evaluating the Impact of Information Literacy in Higher Education: Progress and Prospects

Abstract

The past few years have seen a growing interest by library staff in information literacy interventions focussed on students and, more recently, on postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers. This paper reviews progress to date in evaluating the impact of information literacy work in Higher Education in the UK. It also describes a collaborative UK national initiative in which various university library teams engaged in evaluating information literacy. Finally it proposes a research design for further evaluation work in higher education, combining a new student-focussed framework for information literacy development (already field-tested) and application of concept mapping as a diagnostic tool