A paradigm of information literacy for Greek high school teachers

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published online 17 May 2011Journal of Librarianship and Information ScienceStella Korobili, Aphrodite Malliari, Eugenia Daniilidou and George ChristodoulouA paradigm of information literacy for Greek high school teachers

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Introduction

Greece is one of the countries in which the importance of information and communication technology (ICT) is grow-ing fast, especially in secondary and tertiary education, and aims to raise student literacy levels. Article 5A of the Constitution states that the right to information and the right to participate in the information society are protected by the State. Secondary education in Greece encompasses high school, which is the first three years, and lyceum, which is the last three years and provides pre-university education. High schools are for children of 12 and over. There are pri-vate and public high schools and lyceums, which in a way reflect the economic divisions in society. In 2003 the Ministry of Education published a new curriculum, which in its basic principles introduces the development of informa-tion literacy skills in elementary and secondary education. Much has been said about the deficiencies of information literacy skills in secondary education. Although by law the library ‘constitutes the central unit of school’, only a few

public secondary schools have libraries, and even fewer have librarians, who would be responsible for promoting information literacy skills. Most school libraries are run by a teacher in the school, who has attended a few hours of seminars. In total, it is doubtful whether students are learn-ing any information literacy skills.

The situation in high schools described above underlies the present study, which examines the level of information literacy skills among high school teachers and the extent of information literacy instruction in the western province of Thessaloniki. Children attending high schools there come from different backgrounds. There are children with different ethnicity, primary language, or social class. Because of these differences, high school teachers face considerable

A paradigm of information literacy for Greek high school teachers

Stella Korobili and Aphrodite MalliariTechnological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki,Greece

Eugenia DaniilidouSchools Advisor, Greece

George ChristodoulouTechnological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, Greece

AbstractThis research examines the level of information literacy skills in high school teachers and the extent of information literacy instruction in the western province of Thessaloniki. A census survey was conducted, which resulted in 500 structured questionnaires that were processed and analysed statistically using multivariate methods. The findings indicated that most of the teachers did not use any electronic sources, especially e-sources, and they were probably poor at helping children attain a level of information literacy. It was also found that men, teachers with a Masters or a PhD and teachers with less working experience were more likely to be frequent users of sources and especially e-sources. Therefore, it is suggested that teachers should attend information literacy training seminars.

KeywordsGreece, high school teachers, information literacy policy, information literacy skills, teachers’ training

Corresponding author:Dr Stella Korobili, Them. Sofouli 25, Thessaloniki 54655, Greece. Email: [email protected]

408644 LISXXX10.1177/0961000611408644Korobili, Malliari, Daniilidou and Christodoulu;Journal of Librarianship and Information Science

Article



2 Journal of Librarianship and Information Science

challenges. The total number of high schools examined was 50, and of these only nine have libraries and none has a librarian. The library services are limited to lending books, and/or organizing an artistic occasion or social events, such as an environmental seminar, once or twice a year.

Review of the literature

To date, nothing has been written about the level of infor-mation literacy skills of either students or teachers in Greek high schools. On the other hand, a review of literature worldwide indicates that this has been an important field of study in many countries. Some of the issues that have been examined include the role of school librarians in promoting information literacy skills, cooperation between teachers and school librarians, and between academic and school libraries, and the level of information literacy skills of teachers and students.

Virkus (2003) examined the literature on information lit-eracy activities in Europe. From this overview of the litera-ture it is apparent that much work has been undertaken by librarians to deliver information-related competencies. In the UK, Netherlands and Spain ‘information literacy’ initia-tives have been started in the school sector. In the Netherlands, Boekhorst (2003) reported that information technology studies were introduced in 1993, within which almost 20 percent was devoted to information literacy. Since 1988 more emphasis has been put on information computer technology (ICT) training and in all subjects in basic sec-ondary education there are references to ICT. Therefore, most recent studies deal with how information literacy pro-grammes can be made more successful (Branch, 2002; Campello and Goncalves Abreu, 2005). Oberg et al. (2000) stated that support from the school principal was a key fac-tor in the implementation of effective information literacy programmes in schools. Neuman (2003) identified four dif-ferent roles of the school library media specialist: teacher, information specialist, instructional consultant, and pro-gramme administrator. He also stated that there was a strong relationship between library media programmes and the development of library/information skills. Asselin (2005) described a study which examined the extent of information literacy instruction in Grades 6 and 7 in one Canadian prov-ince. The study was based on responses to questionnaires from teachers and teacher-librarians. She concluded that teacher librarians needed to reposition themselves as leaders in promoting information literacy skills.

There are also many studies reported in the literature concerning collaboration between teachers and school librarians and also between academic libraries and school libraries. For example, Mokhtar and Majid (2006) conducted research on the collaborative relationship between teachers and school librarians in Singapore. It was found that the level of collaboration was very low and the authors presented

recommendations for promoting effective collaborative relationships. McLelland and Crawford (2004), described the Drumchapel Project which was a joint project between Caledonian University and Drumchapel High School, in Glasgow. The main finding was the need for teachers and librarians to work together to offer training to pupils. Many innovative programmes appear in the literature as a result of collaborations between colleges and high schools, and more specifically between academic libraries and high school libraries. All such programmes appear to be success-ful and challenging (Burhanna and Jensen, 2006; Davis-Kahl and Payne, 2003; Ercegovac, 2003; McLelland and Crawford, 2004).

Some other surveys have examined the level of informa-tion literacy skills either of students or teachers in a wide range of schools. Merchant and Hepworth (2002) conducted a study using qualitative research techniques to examine the information literacy skills of teachers and pupils in two UK grammar schools. The majority of the teachers were found to be information literate, more as a result of their personal interest than because of any training. The most significant finding, according to the authors, was that teachers’ skills and attitudes towards information were not being transferred to their pupils. Furthermore, a study that was undertaken by Herring (2006) in a high school in the United Kingdom, using qualitative methods, examined students’ and teachers’ views of information literacy skills in school assignments. The study demonstrated that students had a range of under-standing about the value of information literacy skills, and that they had a preference for electronic sources of informa-tion over printed sources. The teachers’ views in many ways supported the evidence gathered from the students. McLelland and Crawford (2004) used qualitative methods to explore ICT skill levels among school pupils, and found that the school library was a greatly under-utilized resource because of staffing restraints. In addition, a few surveys indicated that not all high school teachers used the Internet to its maximum potential. A study that was conducted by Chou (2003) showed that high school teachers in Taiwan experienced the greatest anxiety over the management of students’ Internet use and the learning of computer-related skills and knowledge. An interesting finding was that some teachers had never used computers in the classroom for teaching and that they believed they were less computer-literate than some of their students. Gibson and Oberg’s (2004) survey in Canada reported that both teachers and administrators had positive attitudes toward the Internet for accessing information, but they also found that teachers and administrators did not use the Internet frequently. Branch (2002) examined the information-seeking processes employed by middle school students at Samuel Hearne Secondary School in Inuvik. This study identified those students who needed instruction in order to become better searchers. This review of the literature indicates that



Korobili et al. 3

information-seeking processes of students should be of interest to both teachers and school librarians.

Research objectives

In the light of the aim of this study and the review of the literature, the following research objectives were set in order to map the present situation in Greek high schools:

• to explore the frequency with which high school teachers use resources and the ways they have acquired their information literacy skills;

• to examine the perceived influence of different factors and barriers in developing information literacy skills;

• to clarify whether high school teachers promote the use of sources by their students and their percep-tions of students’ abilities with regard to the use of resources.

Methodology

In order to accomplish the above set of research objectives, a census survey was conducted among all teachers in high schools of the western province of Thessaloniki. The popu-lation comprised approximately 1000 high school teachers from 50 high schools. The procedure resulted in 500 usable questionnaires (response rate 50%). The instrument was a structured questionnaire, containing 78 variables in total.

The first part of the questionnaire contained the follow-ing demographic and situational variables of the respond-ents: gender, speciality, education level according to their last degree in three categories (university, postgraduate studies), and years of teaching experience in four categories (less than 5, 6–15, 16–25 and more than 26 years). The sec-ond part of the questionnaire contained questions regarding the frequency of use of resources, and consisted of nine items all measured on a four-point frequency scale, from ‘1 = seldom’ to ‘4 = every day’, while ‘never’ was classified as 0. This part also contained a question regarding the per-ceived usefulness of sources in relation to six activities, each measured on a five-point scale of ‘1 = unimportant’ to ‘5 = very important’. Two further questions were about the way each teacher uses resources (printed or electronic) in four categories (Alone, With librarian’s assistance, With colleague’s assistance and With friend’s assistance) and about the convenience of the respondents’ access to the sources in four categories (At home, In a computer lab at school, In the school library, In the public library of the region, In the academic library). Next the participants were asked to assess their ability to use e-sources measured on a five-point scale from ‘1 = not capable at all’ to ‘5 = very capable’. The next question referred to the perceived barriers the teachers face in information retrieval measured in

a five-point scale from ‘1 = disagree very much’ to ‘5 = agree very much’. Another question aimed to identify the way they acquired their information literacy skills. The next two ques-tions referred to whether teachers asked their students to use any kind of resources. The last questions attempted to identify the perceived effectiveness of the teachers’ ability to teach information literacy skills and their perceived evaluation of students’ abilities in searching, assessing, and using printed and electronic sources effectively.

The statistical significance of the relationship between each of the variables under examination and each of the situational characteristics was measured using the chi-square test. If the statistical probability of a relationship was low (p < 0.01), the association was considered to be a strong one. In addition, multiple correspondence analysis (MCA), a multivariate statistical method, was applied to the data in order to obtain an overall view of the interrela-tionships, and thus to make further analysis possible.

Results

Descriptive statistics indicate that the 28.8 percent of the sam-ple were men while 71.2 percent were women. Of the respond-ents 13.4 percent held a Masters degree and/or a PhD. The greatest percentage (37.4%) had working experience of ‘6–15 years’, while 33.2 percent had working experience ‘16–25 years’, 16.4 percent ‘26 years and more’, and 13.0 percent ‘less than 5 years’. Speciality has been grouped as follows: humanities (57.6%), which includes teachers of Greek and teachers of foreign languages; social studies (3.0%), which includes jurists and sociologists; sciences (24.2%), which includes mathematicians, physicists, and biologists, applied sciences (5.6%), which includes teachers of informatics and technicians, and last culture and sports (6.0%), which includes singing masters, art masters, and gymnasts.

Use of resources

The categorical variable indicated that a significant per-centage (44.02%) of teachers had never used any kind of retrieval activities, while 40.64 percent had not used elec-tronic ones. On the other hand, only 12.27 percent of the respondents searched for information every day, either printed (6.13%) or electronically (6.13%) and 11.67 per-cent two or three times per week. For details about each item included in the category ‘Use of Resources’ see Table 1. The descriptive statistics (means) also indicated that books were more often used by teachers (2.98), followed by visiting websites (1.98). It seems that e-books (0.69), OPAC (0.68), e-journals (0.59), and discussion groups (0.38) were almost never used by anyone.

With regard to the specific use of sources, a significant relationship was found between gender and the frequency with which teachers visited websites (x2 = 21.05, p = 0.000),




e-books (x2 = 16.79, p = 0.002), e-mail (x2 = 13.29, p = 0.010). As was expected, men were more frequent users of these information retrieval activities than women. In addition, there were significant statistical relationships between level of education and each one of the sources, with the exception of books. The respondents who held a Masters or a PhD were more frequently users of almost all resources. There were also significant statistical relation-ships between working experience and each one of the e-sources. It seems that younger teachers, mainly with less than five years working experience were using the e-sources more often. The chi-square test of the relationship between the speciality and each one of the sources indicated that a very high percentage of teachers of humanities, sciences, culture and sports had never used almost any of the elec-tronic information retrieval activities, while a good per-centage of teachers of social studies and teachers of applied sciences were better acquainted with electronic information retrieval activities. Things were very different for teachers of applied sciences, since this group included teachers of informatics, who were acquainted with e-sources from their studies. It is interesting to note that only 39.8 percent of teachers considered that the use of resources was ‘very important’ for teaching.

Asking for help

Most of the respondents (85.8%) used printed sources and 65.8 percent used e-sources alone, without help. It is impor-tant to notice that with regard to e-sources, the respondents who needed help preferred to seek advice from a colleague (30.4%) or from a friend (30.0%) rather than from a librar-ian (4.8%). There was a significant statistical relationship (x2 = 11.44, p = 0.001) between gender and the use of any e-sources without help. It seems that more men than women will not ask for help when using any e-sources. As for edu-cational level, respondents with a Masters or a PhD made productive use of a librarian for printed sources, (x2 = 8.71, p = 0.003), while they retrieved electronic information alone (x2 = 10.87, p = 0.001). As for all the disciplines, a very high percentage obtained electronic information by themselves, without help.

Convenience of accessing information

Descriptive statistics also indicated that the sample consid-ered access to printed sources at home (79.0%) and at school libraries (50.2%) more convenient, while they found access to e-sources at home (69.4%) and at school (43.2%) more convenient than the school library (5.4%). It should be noted that usually there is only one computer connected to the Internet in the teachers’ office and that school librar-ies currently provide access only to printed sources. A sig-nificant percentage of teachers rely mostly on their personal collection of books.

There were significant statistical relationships between educational level and locating printed sources and elec-tronic sources in an academic library and accessing e-sources at home (x2 = 11.95, p = 0.001; x2 = 6.91, p = 0.009; x2 = 14.79, p = 0.000 respectively). The teachers that held a Masters degree and/or a PhD mostly used the printed and/or e-sources in an academic library and accessed e-sources at home. Younger teachers, mainly with less than five years’ experience, found it convenient to use e-sources at home, in the school library and in an academic library, (x2 = 34.38, p = 0.000; x2 = 12.72, p = 0.005; x2 = 14.76, p = 0.002 respectively). With regard to speciality a very high percentage of all categories used printed sources at home.

Perceived ability to retrieve information

Almost half of the respondents (42.4%) considered them-selves ‘fairly capable’ in retrieving information from e-sources, while 130 (26.0%) considered themselves ‘somewhat capable’. There was a significant statistical relationship (x2 = 16.18, p = 0.006) between gender and perceived ability to retrieve information from e-sources, with males perceiving themselves to be more capable than women. Likewise, teachers with a Masters degree or a PhD perceived themselves to be more capable than those with a Bachelor’s degree (x2 = 39.61, p = 0.000). In addition, it was found that a greater percentage of teachers with less than five years’ work experience assessed themselves as ‘very capable’ or ‘extremely capable’ in comparison with their colleagues with more work experience (x2 = 66.37,

Table 1. Use of resources

Never % Seldom % Once a week % 2-3 times a week % Every day %

1. Databases 37.8 22.0 17.4 15.2 7.62. Books 9.2 4.8 14.0 23.2 48.83. Printed journals 21.2 22.6 29.4 20.4 6.44. Visiting websites 23.4 18.2 16.2 21.8 20.45. E-books 56.8 27.6 7.6 5.4 2.66. E-journals 62.2 25.4 6.2 3.6 2.67. E-mail 51.6 14.0 8.4 7.8 18.28. Discussion groups 78.2 12.6 3.8 3.8 1.69. OPAC 55.8 28.4 9.8 3.8 2.2



Korobili et al. 5

p = 0.000). Most teachers from all categories of speciality perceived themselves ‘fairly capable’, with the exception of teachers of applied sciences who perceived themselves as ‘extremely capable’ (Table 2).

Facing information technology barriers

With regard to barriers, the mean scores indicated a rather moderate level of problems when using e-sources. It seems that the main barrier is the time necessary for exploring the resources and retrieving records with high recall and low precision (mean 3.31 and 3.08 respectively) and then the time necessary to retrieve the needed information (mean 2.91) followed by facing problems in retrieving relevant records (2.90) (Table 3).

With regard to barriers there were significant statistical relationships between educational level and the following barriers: ‘I have problems in locating the most appropriate source of information’ (x2 = 10.01, p = 0.007), ‘Too much time necessary to retrieve the needed information’ (x2 = 10.28, p = 0.006), ‘I face problems in retrieving records relevant to my information needs’ (x2 = 11.30, p = 0.004) and ‘Lack of knowledge of search techniques to retrieve information effec-tively’ (x2 = 12.18, p = 0.002). For all the above variables fewer respondents with a Masters or PhD faced problems.

Acquiring information literacy skills

Respondents stated that they mainly acquired the necessary information literacy skills either by themselves (47.8%), or

in seminars offered by the 3rd European Community Programme of the Information Society (45.4%) (Table 4).

It seems that for the most part men acquired information literacy skills without help (x2 = 20.98, p = 0.000). There were also significant statistical relationships between edu-cational level and work experience, and the acquisition of the necessary information literacy skills alone (x2 = 11.63, p = 0.001), from their studies (x2 = 20.91, p = 0.000), and in seminars offered in the private sector (x2 = 10.24, p = 0.001; x2 = 37.46, p = 0.000 respectively). In all cases a greater percentage of the respondents with Masters or PhD, and less work experience acquired the necessary information literacy skills. With regard to speciality the greater percent-age of each category, with the exception of the teachers of humanities, acquired their skills alone. As was expected, teachers from applied sciences declared that they mainly acquired information literacy skills from their studies.

Asking students to use resources for their assignments

The majority (74.8%) of the respondents claimed that they asked their students to use most kinds of printed or e-sources to complete an assignment. There was a statistically sig-nificant relationship (x2 = 15.14, p = 0.001) between gender and asking students to use resources for completing an assignment. It seems that more women ask students to use resources, mainly encyclopedias and dictionaries (x2 = 8.23, p = 0.004). A greater percentage of respondents with a Masters or PhD asked their students to use e-sources,

Table 2. Perceived ability to retrieve information across speciality

Humanism % Social studies % Sciences % Applied sciences % Culture & Sports %

Not at all capable 9.7 6.7 5.8 0.0 10.0Somewhat capable 31.6 20.0 20.7 0.0 23.3Fairly capable 42.4 33.3 49.6 17.9 40.0Very capable 9.0 26.7 12.4 32.1 10.0Extremely capable 4.5 13.3 9.1 50.0 10.0I don’t answer /know 2.8 0.0 2.5 0.0 6.7

Table 3. Barriers encountering when using e-sources

Mean Std. Deviation

I face problems in locating the most appropriate information resource 2.55 1.019I have problems accessing the Internet 2.06 1.062I face problems with the speed and the capacity of computers 2.67 1.193Too much time necessary to retrieve the needed information 2.91 1.114Too much time necessary to explore the information resources 3.31 1.051I face problems in retrieving records relevant to my information needs 2.90 1.069I retrieve records with high recall and low precision 3.08 0.992Lack of knowledge of search techniques to retrieve information effectively 2.51 1.161




especially articles and statistical data, for their assignments (x2 = 10.69, p = 0.001; x2 = 9.93, p = 0.002 respectively). A significant percentage of all disciplines declared that they asked their students to use resources for their assignments. In addition, there was a significant statistical relationship (x2 = 54.69, p = 0.000) between asking students to use resources and each category. A greater percentage of teach-ers of social studies and applied sciences asked students to use printed articles (x2 = 17.16, p = 0.002), while most teachers of humanities, social studies and applied sciences asked them to use printed and electronic encyclopedias and dictionaries (x2 = 23.48, p = 0.000). Teachers from social studies and applied sciences also asked for electronic arti-cles (x2 = 24.97, p = 0.000).

Teaching students information literacy skills

One-third of the respondents (34.6%) considered that they were ‘good’ at teaching information literacy skills, while another one-third (30.0%) perceived their ability to teach information literacy skills to be ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ and 15.8% considered themselves as ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’. A greater percentage of those with a Masters degree and/or a PhD thought their ability was ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ in teaching information literacy skills (x2 = 25.32, p = 0.000). Most of the teachers of applied sciences perceived their ability to be ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ in teaching informa-tion literacy skills (x2 = 77.27, p = 0.000). The teachers stated that their students’ abilities to search printed and electronic sources (40.4% and 45.6% respectively) and evaluate and use library sources effectively (26.4 %) were ‘satisfactory’, while 43.8 percent of the teachers perceived those students’ abilities to evaluate and use library sources effectively, as ‘unsatisfactory’.

Comments

Sixty-five of the respondents commented on the situation in schools and the difficulties in delivering information liter-acy skills. Almost all reported difficulties students faced:

lack of adequate time for teaching information literacy skills and lack of infrastructure, more specifically lack of computers with access to the Internet in schools and suita-ble space. In addition, most of their students do not have access to the Internet at home, so it is difficult for them to ask students to use e-sources. A few of the respondents (4) reported students’ inability to evaluate and use the informa-tion obtained. One respondent commented:

We face students’ weakness to distinguish in the plethora of information the important from the unimportant. The elaboration of information as well as the evaluation of information comprise unknown areas for students, because we never took the time to teach them what they mean and how important they are.

Also, very few (5) respondents, referred to teachers’ ina-bility to teach information literacy skills. One respondent said that:

Appropriate training is necessary for educators, so that they will be able to implement (the use of e-sources) in everyday practice in class and students would be acquainted with e-sources. In my opinion, the process through technology should be compulsory in the greater part of the educational process, but educators need to acquire the necessary skills, so that the educational process will be effective.

Only five of the respondents mentioned that a school library would help teachers to deliver information literacy skills. One of the respondents stated:

A school library equipped with computers for use by students would be of great help. A librarian is also needed, who would help students access information for the needs of the courses and the interdisciplinary activities.

Data analysis

In order to obtain an overall view of the data and, and thus to be able to analyse them further, multivariate analysis was

Table 4. The way they have acquired skills in the use of electronic sources

Frequency Percent

I learned by myself 239 47.8From friends or colleagues 136 27.2From my studies 63 12.6I attended seminars in ASPAITE 11 2.2I attended or I attend now training seminars of the the 3rd European Community Programme of the ‘Information Society’ without accreditation

104 20.8

I attended or I attend now training seminars of the 3rd European Community Programme of the ‘Information Society’ with accreditation

227 45.4

I attended seminars in private sector 105 21.0Under the guidance of a librarian 8 1.6Other 9 1.8



Korobili et al. 7

applied. More specifically, the multivariate statistical method used in the present study was MCA, an exploratory method that can be used to reduce the number of dimensions and to form clusters (Benzecri, 1992; Greenacre, 1993; Lebart et al., 1984; Malliari, 2005). This method can be used in a wide range of applications in order to identify systematic relations between more than two variables, without any a priori expectations regarding the nature of those relations (Clausen, 1998; Greenacre and Blasius, 1994).

The data were processed and analysed with MCA using CHIC Analysis v1.0 (Markos et al., 2009), a specialized statistical package. The original data table, with 500 rows (objects) and 30 columns (variables), was converted into an indicator (0–1) matrix having 500 rows (objects) and 123 columns (variable categories). The indicator matrix is a binary representation of the different categorical values of each variable. Each column in this matrix represents a cat-egory generated from the original data matrix, while each row represents an object. The indicator matrix was then converted into a Burt matrix. The Burt matrix is a symmet-ric, square contingency table which contains the cross-tabulations amongst all pairs of variable categories (123 x 123). The Burt matrix is particularly helpful in analysing cross-tabular data in the form of numerical frequencies and was the input matrix to MCA.

The MCA result is an optimal two-dimensional plot that depicts the associations of all variable pairs in a low-dimensional space, which is a great advantage of the method. The visualization contributes to the understanding and explanation of the original data table and by interpret-ing the relative distances between points on the factorial map, produced three groups of respondents.

• Group A consists of the teachers who have a PhD or Masters, belong mainly to the applied sciences, use almost all sources every day, seem to face the infor-mation technology barriers very well and have obtained the required skills from their studies. They perceive themselves as ‘extremely capable’ in using e-sources and they also consider themselves to be ‘very good’ and/or ‘excellent’ at teaching informa-tion literacy skills to students.

• Group B consists of those teachers who have work experience of 6–15 years and use almost all sources two to three times a week; they claim that they have learned by themselves or by attending seminars in the private sector and they seem to face the barriers fairly well. They perceive themselves as ‘fairly capable’ or ‘very capable’ in using e-sources and they also consider themselves to be ‘good’ at teach-ing information literacy skills to students.

• Group C consists of those who teachers who belong mainly to the humanities, have only a Bachelor’s degree, have work experience of more than 16 years and never use any sources; they do not use the

e-sources alone, consider themselves ‘somewhat capable’ or ‘not at all capable’ in using e-sources and most of them perceive themselves to be ‘very poor’ at teaching information literacy skills. They have never attended any seminars and with reference to the barriers they mainly have no opinion.

Discussion

A large number of surveys worldwide indicate that many teachers agree that information literacy is important although they admit that they have difficulties in promoting it for different reasons. A similar situation was found in the present study, in which 500 Greek high school teachers were surveyed. A significant percentage of the teachers of the schools in the western province of Thessaloniki, almost 500, showed negative feelings toward the survey, as it was initiated from tertiary education. They thought that we were trying to evaluate them, although it was clearly set out in the covering letter that it was for research purposes. They implied that since they belong to civil service, nobody has the right to evaluate them and their work. Although one should be careful with generalizations, one reasonable assumption could be that the ones that did not fill in the questionnaire did not use any sources and more specifically e-sources. Therefore, it is possible that if the response rate was higher than 50 percent then the picture of Greek reality would be more negative.

In Greece computer technology has been introduced in recent years in many high schools, employing teachers of informatics, but the notion of information literacy seems still to be unknown. This contrasts with Probert’s (2009) survey in which a number of teachers did have some under-standing of the concept of information literacy. In addition, from the comments of the respondents, one can deduce that they are mostly referring to computer literacy and not infor-mation literacy skills. Moreover, the seminars that most of the teachers stated they attended, organized by the Ministry of Education, concerned computer literacy and not infor-mation literacy. Only one seminar of 96 hours, which was attended by a limited number of teachers, mainly teachers of Greek and physicists, dealt with some information liter-acy issues, such as evaluation of Internet sources.

Even though respondents of self-reported surveys have a tendency to overestimate their skills, the findings of the present study indicated that most of the teachers did not use any electronic sources. Of the respondents 44.02 percent of the teachers had never used any kind of retrieval activities, while 40.64 percent had not used the electronic retrieval. The ones who used the Internet mainly used it to navigate websites. In addition, they mainly asked their students to use information from dictionaries and encyclopaedias for their assignments. It should be also noted that only 39 per-cent of teachers considered that the use of resources is ‘very important’ for teaching. In a way, these descriptive




statistics document the authors’ hypothesis that teachers mainly use textbooks and most of them do not feel the need to use any other sources to enrich their teaching content and methodology. Besides, historically, high school teachers have been assumed to be teaching their students what they needed to know through the use of prescribed texts.

The perceived ability to retrieve information seems to be reasonable enough since in this study almost half of the respondents (42.4%) considered themselves ‘fairly capa-ble’ in retrieving information from e-sources, and 26.0 per-cent ‘somewhat capable’. As a result, the moderate skills of respondents were not being transferred to their pupils. Therefore, a good percentage of teachers (43.8%) rated their students’ abilities to evaluate and use library sources effectively, as ‘unsatisfactory’, which is similar to the find-ings of Chou’s (2003) survey. According to respondents’ comments, the lack of students’ information literacy skills were due mainly to lack of infrastructure and time.

This study found that teachers’ levels of education (degree), as well as experience of work made a rather sig-nificant difference in the extent of their information literacy skills. Although the percentage of those who held a Masters degree and/or a PhD is small, it is indicative that their stud-ies helped them to understand the need for research. The younger participants with less work experience showed that in recent years, even in undergraduate studies, the need for research skills has grown. Some high school teachers com-mented that they had never felt the need to acquire informa-tion literacy skills and transfer them to their students.

It is indicative that especially teachers of Greek and teachers of foreign languages had never used any resources except books. It is possible that they refer to the textbooks provided by the Ministry of Education, including guide-lines as to how to discuss all the subjects in class. As was expected, teachers of informatics were more acquainted with e-sources. In addition, men were found to be more fre-quent users of e-sources, as in the studies by Busselle et al. (1999), Cheong (2002) and Teo (2001). It seems also that more men than women did not seek any help in using e-sources and they perceived themselves more capable at retrieving information from e-sources than women.

In this study the majority of the teachers who were found to be information literate, as in Merchant and Hepworth’s (2002) study, had gained their skills as a result of personal interest rather than from formal training. The impact of convenience of access at home on use of e-sources is rea-sonable. Furthermore, it might be argued that respondents seem to experience only a moderate level of problems when using electronic sources, while the relevant variable (Barriers) was statistically significantly related with level of education. One of the main barriers demonstrated was the time needed to explore information sources, which is in line with the findings of Applebee et al. (1997, 2000) and Korobili et al. (2006). Williams and Coles (2007) argued that the most prominent barriers for teachers were lack of

time and lack of ready access to sources, and Heimlich (2003), who used a scale which included 13 barriers, found that ‘information overload’ and ‘trustworthiness of information’were the greatest barriers, while for non-users the greatest barrier was ‘experience in teaching’.

The method of MCA supports the above results by identifying three groups, in terms of the frequency of use of sources that can be called non-users, average users, and heavy users. Heavy users are mainly teachers who are involved with information retrieval every day, were mainly young with postgraduate studies and did not face any problems when dealing with computers and information technology.

Conclusions and implications

This study is focused on determining the level of informa-tion literacy skills of high school teachers, aiming at pre-paring courses that will overcome the consequences. This study is significant in that it will add to the literature regarding information literacy of Greek high school teach-ers and students. The ultimate goal of the present study is to suggest to the Ministry of Education methods to imple-ment and/or improve information literacy programmes in high schools.

In this study it was found that the majority of teachers did not use any sources, especially e-sources, and they were probably poor at helping children attain a level of information literacy. However, it seems that technology has changed the perception of many teachers and their understanding of literacy. Teachers who perceived their abilities to retrieve information to be good and faced rela-tively few barriers were more frequent users of sources and especially e-sources and probably provided some information literacy concepts. Specifically, it was found that men, teachers with a Masters or a PhD, and teachers with less working experience were more likely to be fre-quent users of sources and especially e-sources and per-ceived themselves to be very good and excellent in teaching information literacy skills to students. In addi-tion, teachers of applied sciences, followed by the teachers of social sciences, were more frequently users of e-sources and rated themselves as better searchers and better teach-ers of information literacy skills. Most obviously, this research also needs to be addressed to students in order to verify the relationship between teachers’ perceptions regarding their abilities to teach information literacy skills and the obtained relevant knowledge of students.

Furthermore, as most public schools do not have librar-ies, in order to be able to construct the new paradigm and to contribute to the education of information-literate students and since the existing educational policy seems not to sup-port in practice the concept of information literacy through school libraries and librarians, teachers must be enabled to promote in their students the skills needed to perform



Korobili et al. 9

information search processes. They must also be able to evaluate and use the information appropriately, in other words to promote the information literacy skills to their stu-dents. As teachers and not librarians are the key persons for the successful delivery of information literacy skills in high schools, teachers’ level of information literacy skills must be taken into consideration. Therefore, when teacher train-ing is planned and implemented, the concerns of teachers should be taken into consideration and seminars should be organized to include the use of computers in class and how to attain information literacy skills.

Besides, it seems that one way to provide opportunities for teachers to learn to retrieve information is to supply schools with an adequate number of computers with access to the Internet for the use of the teachers and students. The key role of the school in teaching information literacy skills, especially in deprived areas, is that they will provide free use of computers. It should be mentioned that the only supplier of infrastructure in Greece in public high schools is the Government.

This research needs also to be duplicated in other schools in Greece to determine whether the results can be general-ized to all Greek high school teachers. Qualitative research should be used to supplement the quantitative data, in order to produce a better understanding of teachers’ perceptions regarding information literacy. Moreover, further research is needed to find out how the students in high schools actu-ally interact with information, what kind of information they tend to use and how they use it, so that information literacy programmes can be developed which are custom-ized to their needs. These programmes could be developed by academic librarians, or professors of library science schools in cooperation with high school teachers, and/or school librarians, as is common practice in many other countries (Burhanna and Jensen, 2006).

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Author biographies

Stella Korobili is Professor at the Department of Library and Information Science at the Technological Educational Institute of

Thessaloniki. She specializes in Online Information Retrieval and in Design and Implementation of Instructional Strategies. She has developed a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) for user educa-tion. She has published articles concerning information literacy and other relevant topics abroad and lectured at many confer-ences. From 1996–2002 she was project manager for the develop-ment of the TEI Library.

Aphrodite Malliari is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Library and Information Systems of the Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki. Among her interests are patron needs, information retrieval, information literacy, and academic libraries.

Eugenia Daniilidou is school advisor for secondary school teach-ers in public schools in Thessaloniki, Greece. She has a university degree in Classical Studies and PhD in Educational Studies from Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece. Her research and pub-lications focus on literacy, information literacy, and cross-cultural education.

George Christodoulou is a Lecturer at the Department of Library and Information Science at the Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki. He specializes in evaluation of infor-mation retrieval systems and he is involved in developing the Union Catalogue of Greek Academic Libraries.



A paradigm of information literacy for Greek high school teachers

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