Comparison of effects of training programs for final year nursing students in Turkey: Differences in self-efficacy with regard to information literacy

Background: Information literate person are aware of where and how they can obtain the information they need. Little is known about student nurses information literacy skills in different education programs. Objectives: To find out how final year nursing students rated their own abilities to acquire new information. Design and Participants: This study used comparative and descriptive cross-sectional surveys. Participants were final year students in two different programs, in two different universities in Turkey. Methods: The study sample consisted of final year nursing students who received training in Classic Learning (N: 61) and Problem-Based Learning (N: 96). As an evaluation instrument for the perceptions of the students their own information literacy, a scale consisting of 28 questions with 7 Likert ratings for each was used (min: 28, max: 196). Results: The return rates of the surveys were 96.7% in the school with classic training and 81.2% in the school with PBL. It was found that the average scores of the students were high, with a mean of 137. ±. 29 in the school where the classic training program was carried out, and 163. ±. 21 in the school where the training was PBL. A statistically significant difference was found by comparing the average scores of the two independent groups (t : -. 6.0; p. <. 0.05). Conclusions: Students in both of the training programs rated themselves as high. However, PBL training had a stronger influence on the development of their self-perceptions regarding information literacy. We conclude that training programs should be reviewed, and new methods should be developed based on these concepts