Information literacy skill mastery across the undergraduate degree: An examination of first-generation and continuing-generation students

Abstract

Library information literacy efforts are often heavily concentrated at the first-year level. This study examined undergraduate information literacy skills across all four years of college, revealing that information literacy skill development is not linear across class years. This finding suggests that librarians should not assume that students past their first year will no longer need information literacy support. Further, results revealed that, by the upper division level, first-generation students make considerable progress toward closing information literacy knowledge gaps in comparison with their first-generation peers. However, additional support in the areas of source evaluation and scholarly communication is likely to be helpful, even for upper-division students.