The Perceptions of Information Literacy by Students in English Language Departments: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Information literacy is a fundamental component of the educational process. One of the most essential considerations
involved in the course of providing effective education to students, is the need to instil in them the need to be aware
of the information and facts that most impact their own lives and the societies in which they live. Information
literacy includes accessing the essential pieces of information that are necessary for the purpose of functioning as a
fully informed adult in a democratic society. When these statements are considered within the scope of education and
foreign or second language teaching, it is apparent that teachers need to be information literates since they are the
ones who transfer information or show the way towards it. In order to find out the Information literacy levels of the
students of two state universities in Turkey, a survey was conducted in the study. The participants were the students
of the English Language and Literature departments of these universities. As one of universities prefers to remain
anonymous, we called them University1 and 2 in the study. University 1 had 50 participants and University 2 had 47,
so there were a total of 97 participants in the survey. Descriptive research design was used in this research. The two
universities were compared, from the point of view of information literacy awareness in the study, and some
differences were found. For further studies, many more universities can be included in order to obtain a more general
and common conclusions.