A Multicultural Approach to Digital Information Literacy Skills Evaluation in an Israeli College - Research Article

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by kopisore

Information literacy is a crucial academic capability, yet many first-year students struggle to use information sources effectively and to build academic information literacy. This study uses first-year students’ self-estimations of their information skills under two information literacy models to compare multicultural and multilingual groups in an Israeli college. Hebrew-native students preferred digital sources, while Hebrew-as-second-language (Arabic-speaking) students preferred printed sources; both groups rated technology and information literacy above average.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages22

Reading Time55 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

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Introduction

Communications in Information Literacy | Volume 12 | Issue 2 | Article 4 | | --- | --- | 12-18-2018 A Multicultural Approach to Digital Information Literacy Skills Evaluation in an Israeli College Efrat Pieterse Western Galilee College, [efratp@wgalil.ac.il](efratp@wgalil.ac.il)[ ](efratp@wgalil.ac.il)Riki Greenberg Haifa University and Bar-Ilan University, [riki@univ.haifa.ac.il](riki@univ.haifa.ac.il)[ ](riki@univ.haifa.ac.il)Zahava Santo Western Galilee College, [zahavas@wgalil.ac.il](zahavas@wgalil.ac.il) Let us knowhow access to this document benefits you. Follow this and additional works at: [https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/comminfolit](https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/comminfolit) Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation Pieterse, E., Greenberg, R., & Santo, Z. (2018). A Multicultural Approach to Digital Information Literacy Skills Evaluation in an Israeli College. Communications in Information Literacy, 12 (2), 107-127. [https://doi.org/10.15760/comminfolit.2018.12.2.4](https://doi.org/10.15760/comminfolit.2018.12.2.4) This Research Article is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Communications in Information Literacy by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. For more information, [please contact](please contact pdxscholar@pdx.edu)[ pdxscholar@pdx.edu](please contact pdxscholar@pdx.edu). Pieterse et al.: A Multicultural Approach to Digital Information Literacy Skills E COMMUNICATIONS IN INFORMATION LITERACY | VOL. 12, NO. 2, 2018 107 A Multicultural Approach to Digital Information Literacy Skills Evaluation in an Israeli College Efrat Pieterse, Western Galilee College Riki Greenberg, Haifa University and Bar Ilan University Zahava Santo, Western Galilee College Abstract Information literacy is an essential proficiency for success in academic studies, yet many first-year students find it hard to use information sources efficiently and to develop academic information literacy. This study reports findings from first-year students' selfestimation of their information skills according to two information literacy models (Shapiro & Hughes, 1996; Ng, 2012) and presents interesting insights on the differences between the multicultural and multilingual student groups in the study’s population. The researchers found that Hebrew-native speaking students preferred digital sources while Hebrew as second language (Arabic-speaking) students preferred printed sources, and both groups ranked their technological and information literacy skills as above average. The study supports previous research on Arabic-speaking students’need for more mediation in the dimensions of information literacy examined compared to Hebrew-speaking students, despite no significant difference in access to the internet at home and self-assessment of their general computing skills. Keywords: information literacy; higher education; multicultural students; Israel; multilingual students. Pieterse, E., Greenberg, R., & Santo, Z. (2018) . A multicultural approach to digital information literacy skills evaluation in an Israeli college. Communications in Information Literacy, 12(2), 107-127. Copyright for articles published in Communications in Information Literacy is retained by the author(s). Author(s) also extend to Communications in Information Literacy the right to redistribute this article via other scholarly resources and bibliographic databases. This extension allows the authors'copyrighted content to be included in some databases that are distributed and maintained by for-profit companies. All other rights of redistribution are licensed by Communications in Information Literacy under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BYNC-SA 4 . 0) . Pieterse, Greenberg, & Santo [ ARTICLE ] Digital Information Literacy Skills Evaluation Published by PDXScholar, 2018 Communications in Information L

FAQs

What is the main purpose of the study?

To examine how first-year students evaluate their information literacy skills using two models, and to compare differences between multicultural and multilingual student groups.

How did Hebrew-native and Hebrew-as-second-language (Arabic-speaking) students differ?

Hebrew-native students preferred digital sources, while Hebrew-as-second-language (Arabic-speaking) students preferred printed sources.

What did the study report about students’ self-assessment and internet access?

Both groups rated their technological and information literacy skills above average, with no significant differences reported in home internet access and general computing self-assessment.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by kopisore