Is there an information literacy gap between the skill set of graduating secondary school students and the assignment requirements for students enrolled in 1st year undergraduate or college courses? Are graduating grade twelve students in Ontario prepared for undergraduate and postsecondary research? What are undergraduate faculties’ assumptions
about the IL abilities of their undergraduate students? In this session, the research team will present our surveys to be sent out to high school teachers, 1st year faculty, school librarians, academic librarians, and 1st year students about the perceived gap in student readiness for research at the postsecondary level. We invite attendees to participate in a focus group to continue the conversation about how to address the information literacy gap through experimental partnerships between school and academic librarians, between curriculum writers across secondary and postsecondary institutions, and through the development of tools, resources, and services.
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this session
- participants will have received an overview of the IL gap between graduating grade twelve secondary
students’ IL skills and the IL expectations of first year undergraduate and college students - participants will have been asked the same focus group questions/survey questions that secondary school
teachers, faculty, librarians, and students will be asked in the data collection phase of the research - participants will be invited to share their ideas about how to address this information literacy gap
together with the research team, and will be able to identify potential partners in their local communities in order to continue to engage in conversations at the local level.
