Observed and Self-Perceived Information Literacy among teachers and future teachers and their relationship with sociodemographic variables

Abstract

The relationship between the levels of Self-Perceived Informational Literacy (CIA) and Observed Informational Literacy (CIO) of a sample of 442 teachers and future teachers of Compulsory Education in Castile and León is studied in order to relate these levels with different socio-demographic variables. These variables include age, gender, occupation (future teacher versus in-service teachers) and educational level (Primary Education versus Secondary Education). Descriptive analyses and inferential analyses carried out show that the Self-Perceived Information Literacy is overrated in all the groups evaluated, which has allowed to introduce a variable named “valuation discrepancy” which measures the difference between self-assessment and performance (CIA-CIO) in Informational Literacy. The valuation discrepancy shows especially large values for future teacher as well as for males, and if the values for the dimensions considered are analyzed, the valuation discrepancy is greater for the Information Search and the Evaluation of Information. The variance models which have been developed have found influence of gender, educational level and occupation on the levels of Self-Perceived Informational Literacy, Observed Informational Literacy and valuation discrepancy, and influence of age only on CIA, and there is also an interaction between educational level and gender at CIA and CIO levels. These results are relevant to design training activities for in-service teachers and future teachers, as they allow to draw a profile of teachers or future teachers who may have more need for training in Information Competence. They also could explain the results found in other studies according to which the highest level of digital and technological skills is found among male and younger people; these results could be consequence of using self-assessments and do not correspond to the actual performance.

Key words: informational competences, primary education, secondary education, teacher education, lifelong education, information evaluation, information search, educational research.