Guide me, show me : personalised coaching as a means of instilling information literacy competencies in students

Abstract

Many studies have revealed that appropriate information literacy (IL) skills can improve the learning process, performance, and achievements of students and ultimately guide them in the desired direction of becoming knowledge workers. However, traditional methods of teaching IL have not always been successful due to several limitations, including short-term effectiveness and shallow application of skills and knowledge. Novel ways of teaching IL need to be experimented with and developed so that IL can be taught more effectively with students having enriched lessons and a more holistic learning experience. This paper provides an overview of a quasi-experimental study conducted with two clusters of 13-year-old students who did a project-based assignment. One cluster of students received personalised coaching (experimental) while another cluster did not receive such coaching (control). The findings of the study show that students who received personalised coaching obtained better scores for their project and showed better mastery of the learning and research process through the ability to use various information sources, present more reliable and authoritative information, and include proper citations and a complete bibliography in their project reports.