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Information Literacy as a Key to Academic Success: Results from a Longitudinal Study

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Information Literacy: Key to an Inclusive Society (ECIL 2016)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 676))

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Abstract

The present paper examines whether university students’ information literacy contributes to their academic performance over and above their level of general cognitive abilities. Fifty-three German psychology students (18–25 years, 85% female) participated in a longitudinal study with four waves of measurement spanning the first 18 months of their bachelor studies. Stepwise multiple regression analyses revealed that scholarly information literacy (as assessed by a fixed-choice test of knowledge about information search and evaluation) predicted university grade point average as well as basic psychology knowledge even when controlling for fluid intelligence. According to additional simple slope analyses, information literacy was able to compensate for limited cognitive ability: Information literacy and academic performance were only associated in students with lower working memory capacity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Research was funded by the German Joint Initiative for Research and Innovation with a grant acquired in the Leibniz Competition 2013 (grant number: SAW-2013-ZPID-1 195).

  2. 2.

    The total sample of the longitudinal study comprised N = 137 students at t1 (representing approximately 80 percent of that cohort of first year students enrolled at the university), and still n = 115 students at t4. With regard to gender, age, and all study variables referred to in this paper, no differences were found between those participants who refused to participate in the additional study and the participating subsample. Thus, the subsample may be considered representative for the total longitudinal cohort.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ZPID - Leibniz Institute for Psychology Information, Trier, Germany

    Anne-Kathrin Mayer & Günter Krampen

  2. University of Trier, Trier, Germany

    Günter Krampen

Authors
  1. Anne-Kathrin Mayer
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  2. Günter Krampen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anne-Kathrin Mayer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Hacettepe University, Beytepe, Ankara, Turkey

    Serap Kurbanoğlu

  2. Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France

    Joumana Boustany

  3. University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

    Sonja Špiranec

  4. University of California (UCLA), Los Angeles, California, USA

    Esther Grassian

  5. University of California (UCLA), Los Angeles, California, USA

    Diane Mizrachi

  6. University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA

    Loriene Roy

  7. Hacettepe University, Beytepe, Ankara, Turkey

    Tolga Çakmak

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Mayer, AK., Krampen, G. (2016). Information Literacy as a Key to Academic Success: Results from a Longitudinal Study. In: Kurbanoğlu, S., et al. Information Literacy: Key to an Inclusive Society. ECIL 2016. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 676. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52162-6_59

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52162-6_59

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-52161-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-52162-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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