Undervisning i informationskompetens. : En jämförande analys av lärares förståelse av informationskompetens i Norge och Ungern

The aim of this Master’s thesis is to examine how teachers of primary school students view the concept of information literacy and their classroom practices related to this subject. In addition, the study was designed to compare teachers’ understanding of information literacy in two European countries, Norway and Hungary. In spite of the fact that both countries are European developed countries with a similar culture and educational purposes, the economic difference can affect their possibilities to profit from the rapidly developing internet and information technologies. This study investigates the assumption that the differences between teachers’ answers in the two countries will be more and more significant on each further step of Van Dijk’s model of access: motivational, material, skills, and usage access. The study has a socio-economic perspective and the empirical data was collected through quantitative web-based questionnaire. The findings indicate that most of the teachers have a good understanding of the concept of information literacy and they are aware of the importance of information literacy skills to some level. Exploring the teachers’ classroom practices, I found that they do teach information literacy skills, and they do have classroom practices which can facilitate the improvement of information literacy skills, but there is a difference between the Norwegian and Hungarian teachers’ practices. The findings of the study confirm my initial assumption and are consistent with the pattern that I would expect to find according to the Van Dijk’s model, and thus, with the influence of the socio-economic features on teachers’ view on information literacy and their classroom practices related to teaching information literacy skills