Measuring the impact of information literacy e-learning and in-class courses via pre-tests and post-test at the Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University

Introduction: This paper aims to evaluate the results of the assessment and comparison of the impact of information literacy in e-learning and in-class courses at the Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Czech Republic. The objective herein is to show that e-learning can be as effective a method of teaching IL activities as in-class lessons. Methods: In the autumn of 2012 and the spring of 2013, a total of 159 medical students enrolled in the e-learning course and completed the required pre-tests and post-tests comprising 30 multiple-choice questions on information literacy topics; another 92 PhD students from in-class courses took the 22-question test. The pre-test and post-test scores along with the number of students who correctly answered the questions were counted and the overall percentage was calculated. The final outcome was the extent of knowledge increase and the number of students with correct answers, expressed in percentage. Results: On average, 95.5% and 92.5% increase in knowledge was recorded among the medical students and PhD students respectively; an average of 4.5% medical students and 7.5% of PhD students recorded low scores in the post-test. As for the number of correct answers, the average results of the 22 set questions shared among the study groups were as follows: 15 questions were answered correctly more often by medical students, 6 were answered correctly more often by PhD students and only 1 question was correctly answered in the same average percentage by both the groups. Discussion: The results point to the need for proposing several key revisions. Among these include an exercise to be included in both curricula on online search for an article (Web of Science or Scopus) without full text availability via link service, while instructions on manually creating bibliographic references shall be added to the PhD course. Additional search examples shall be added to the study materials and video records of in-class lessons shall be made available to the students for later revision. Some test questions require revision so that they are based more on practical examples rather than mere definitions. The results thus assembled, and the follow-up discussion, can then help in convincing the advocates of in-class teaching of the beneficial application of e-learning in information literacy education. Additionally, arguments based on such convincing outcomes can assist other librarians in their assessments and will serve to persuade the associated academic staff of similar professional competence towards educating university students in information literacy