Assessing the Needs and Measuring the Impact of the Information Literacy Sessions at the Aga Khan University’s Institute for Educational Development, Pakistan

Abstract

Main objective of this paper is to assess the information literacy needs of the fresh M.Ed. students at the AKU-IED and to measure the impact of the information literacy sessions over the students by using the pretest and posttest tool.Document the users’ reflections to improve the forthcoming information literacy sessions. Pretest questionnaire was sent to the M.Ed. students of AKU-IED to know the information literacy needs, and to know about their understanding about collection, OPAC and e-resources. As a result needs identified through this questionnaire were addressed in the information literacy session. This hands-on information literacy session was complimented with the handouts and assignments were given to the students as well. After the information literacy session, posttest questionnaire was sent to the users. This posttest questionnaire was having some questions taken from the pretest with a purpose to measure the impact the session had made over the students. This measurement was carried out by comparing the responses collected in the pretest and posttest. Posttest questionnaire was also having the questions to know the users reflections about the weak part of the session, strongest part of the session and their opinion to improve the forthcoming sessions. Present results showed the weak areas of the students which include the concepts of call number, classification number, author mark, ways to access the library collection, use of OPAC, databases, full-text articles were needed to be covered in the IL session. Some areas needed less attention and time during the sessions because majority of the students were already familiar to them. These were concepts of on-campus access, type of searches through OPAC and the definition of OPAC. Posttest analysis showed us the impact the session has made.