Not a Blank Slate: Information Literacy Misconceptions in First-Year Experience Courses - Article 5

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by kopisore

Information literacy is the primary instructional focus of many librarians, and the field increasingly relies on threshold concepts to support undergraduates. Yet first-year students arrive with prior ideas that can hinder instruction. This study reports focus-group findings with first-year students at a private liberal arts university, using misconceptions drawn from Hinchliffe et al.’s inventory. Results confirm some misconceptions, but not all; responses also sometimes conflict or oppose the proposed misunderstandings.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages15

Reading Time38 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Background and purpose

Misconceptions and prior experience

Related study and inventory development

Study method and focus groups

Literature review

Communications in Information Literacy | Volume 14 Issue 2 | Article 5 | | --- | --- | | 12-2020
Not a Blank Slate: Information Literacy Misconceptions in First-Year Experience Courses
Michelle Keba
Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, Florida Atlantic University, [kebam@health.fau.edu](kebam@health.fau.edu)
Elizabeth Fairall
Warren Library, Palm Beach Atlantic University, [elizabeth_fairall@pba.edu](elizabeth_fairall@pba.edu)
Follow this and additional works at: [https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/comminfolit](https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/comminfolit)
Part of the Information Literacy Commons
Let us know how access to this document benefits you. | | Recommended Citation Keba, M., & Fairall, E. (2020) . Not a Blank Slate: Information Literacy Misconceptions in First-Year Experience Courses. Communications in Information Literacy, 14 (2), 255–268 . [https://doi.org/10.15760/](https://doi.org/10.15760/)[ ](https://doi.org/10.15760/)[comminfolit.2020.14.2.5](comminfolit.2020.14.2.5) This open access Research Article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4 .0) . All documents in PDXScholar should meet accessibility standards. If we can make this document more accessible to you, contact our team. Not a Blank Slate: Information Literacy Misconceptionsin First-Year Experience Courses Michelle Keba, Florida Atlantic University Elizabeth Fairall, Palm Beach Atlantic University Abstract Information literacy is the primary instructional focus of many librarians. With the development of a core set of information literacy threshold concepts, librarians often strive to impart these concepts to undergraduate students during their years of study. However, when students come to school, they are not blank slates. They arrive with preconceived ideas or misconceptions which can impede this process. In this article, the authors report on the results of focus groups held with first-year students at a private, liberal arts university. During the focus groups, participants were asked to share their perceptions ofthemisconceptions identified by Hinchliffe et al. (2018) in their information literacy misconception inventory. This study adds support for some of the misconceptions included in the Hinchliffe et al. inventory. However, it was not able to add support to all of them. In some cases, participants indicated conflicting results; in others their responses opposed themisconception. Keywords: misconceptions, first-year students, information literacy Keba, M., & Fairall, E. (2020). Not a blank slate: Information literacy misconceptions in first-year experience courses. Communications in Information Literacy, 14(2), 255–268. Not a Blank Slate: Information Literacy Misconceptionsin First-Year Experience Courses Information literacy is the primary instructional focus of many librarians. With the development of a core set of information literacy threshold concepts, librarians often strive to impart these concepts to undergraduate students beginning in their first year of study. However, misconceptions about information literacy can impede or delay this process. One way librarians can improve instruction is by identifying common information literacy misconceptions among student populations in order to develop lesson plans and curricula that enable students to overcome these barriers. Educational researchers Wiggins and McTighe (2005) note that misconceptions arise from “prior experience and a plausible inference based on that experience”(p. 142) . Because misconceptions are based in prior experience, they are often hard for students to let go of especially when they have been successful in the past. According to Wiggins and McTighe, in order to remove misconceptions, students need to be open to recognizing their misunderstandings and critically evaluating their current ways of thinking. In a recent stud

FAQs

Why do information literacy misconceptions affect first-year instruction?

Students bring preconceived ideas based on prior experience, which can impede or delay learning of information literacy threshold concepts.

How was the study conducted in this article?

The authors held focus groups with first-year students in first-year experience courses and asked participants to discuss misconceptions from Hinchliffe et al.’s misconception inventory.

Did the findings fully support Hinchliffe et al.’s misconception inventory?

The study provided support for some misconceptions included in the inventory, but it could not support all of them, with occasional conflicting or opposing responses.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by kopisore