Not a blank slate: Information literacy misconceptions in first-year experience courses

Abstract

Information literacy is the primary instructional focus of many librarians. With the development of a core set of information literacy threshold concepts, librarians often strive to impart these concepts to undergraduate students during their years of study. However, when students come to school, they are not blank slates. They arrive with preconceived ideas or misconceptions which can impede this process. In this article, the authors report on the results of focus groups held with first-year students at a private, liberal arts university. During the focus groups, participants were asked to share their perceptions of the misconceptions identified by Hinchliffe et al. (2018) in their information literacy misconception inventory. This study adds support for some of the misconceptions included in the Hinchliffe et al. inventory. However, it was not able to add support to all of them. In some cases, participants indicated conflicting results; in others their responses opposed the misconception.