Key Stakeholders' Interpretations of Scientific Information Literacy: A Survey of Central Florida's K-16 Educators

Matilynn Lam, Christopher Randles

University of Central Florida

Today’s technology has led to an increase in the accessibility of information on a daily basis, and this information can be true, false, misattributed, or even heavily modified. Due to this, it has become increasingly important to be able to locate, critically evaluate, and apply information in an ethical and effective manner. This skillset, called information literacy (IL), is incredibly valuable within all disciplines, yet there is little explicit instruction on these skills within the typical chemistry curriculum, despite a wealth of research pointing towards explicit instruction. To address this lack and build a better-informed science citizenry, we must first understand how key education stakeholders (i.e., educators, librarians) interpret IL and its implementation and assessment within the classroom. To accomplish this, we must begin conversations with key education stakeholders (i.e., educators, librarians) to understand their perspectives. data through focus groups with chemistry and librarian stakeholders and a survey distributed to chemistry university educators in central Florida. This data provided valuable insight into the perspectives of university educators regarding IL and the associated threshold concepts. This data provided broader depth of perspectives of these stakeholders regarding IL and the potential development of associated threshold concepts. Most of the educators stressed the importance of IL within the chemistry classroom, but few felt they knew how to teach it.