Information behaviour and information literacy

Lecture 4: Information literacy model

Thursday, December 11, 2025, Master of Library and information science, cohort 7 had an Information behaviour and information literacy class with Associate Professor Winner Chawinga. The class started on a high note as always. ASHAN Pempho? The Professor read out my name from his register. ‘present!’, I responded.

Upon finishing checking the class attendance register, the class commenced. The class began with describing the information literacy model. So, the Professor described an information literacy model as guide for developing information literacy skills in individuals and provide frameworks for information literacy curricula. The Professor said that the information literacy models are also called information problem-solving models in information literacy.The following are some of the information literacy models

·       The big 6 information skills (Einsenberg and Berrlowitz,1990)

·       Seven pillars of information (SEONNUL, 1999)

·       Pathways to knowledge (Pappas & Tape,2002)

·       PLUS model (James Herring, 1996)

·       Seven faces of information literacy (Bruce, 1997)

The big 6 information skills model developed by Mike Eisenberg and Bob Bertowitz is a widely used, six-step framework for solving information problems and teaching information literacy, guiding users from defining their task to evaluating. Chawinga stressed that the model consists of six logical steps or stages as follows;

a)     Task definition: - This is the stage where an individual needs to define the problem from an information point of view. Moreover, the individual must be conscious of the need to search for information fulfilling a specific task. For instance, a student gets an assignment from a Lecturer and clearly state the information need to be solved.

b)    Information seeking categories: -Once the individual has already clearly defined the information problem, he or she must decide which and what information sources is most appropriate to work on the task.

c)     Locating and access: - After the individual determined their priorities for information seeking, he or she must locate information from variety of resources including electronic resources and access specific information. For instance, using the keywords to find the sources in electronic databases subscribed by Mzuzu University to help work on an assignment.  

d)    Use of information: - After finding the potentially useful resources the individual must engage the information sources to determine its relevance and the extract the relevant information. The information can be engaged reading, viewing, listening etc. Once necessary information has been found the individual can employ skills to use the information.

e)     Synthesise: - The Professor said that this stage involves restructuring and repackaging information into new different form. Synthesis is linked to task definition in that students are expected to answer the specific questions they created when initially engaging in the problem-solving process

f)    Evaluation: - This is the examination and assessment of the information problem-solving process. Evaluation stag determines whether the information found met the defined task.

In a nut shell, lecture 4 focused on the information literacy models. Of course, out of the many models, the class looked at the big 6 information skills model.http://wchawinga.blogspot.com/