New Generation of Students Information Abilities: Metacognitive and Cognitive Thinking Dimension

Abstract

The paper analyses the basic school students (8th grade students) information literacy according to the theoretical SCONUL which encompass seven literacy components (seven pillars): 1) Determining the goals and the need for information (manages to determine the need for information); 2) projecting process of searching information (manages to assess current knowledge and identify gaps); 3) planning (manages to construct strategies for determining sources of information); 4)  collecting and storing of the information (manages to identify sources and access the needed information); 5) assessing the information (manages to review, compare and assess the information); 6) managing the information (manages to deal with the information in professional and ethical manner); 7) presentation of the information (manages to apply gained knowledge: present results of researches, summarise new and old information, develop and spread new knowledge). It is identified that the information literacy of new generation is expressed by the ability to determine the goals and the need for information, the ability to project the process of information search, the ability to collect and store the information, the ability to deal with the information in professional and ethical manner when achieving the intended objectives. The levels of these skills are not the same quantitatively. The ability of determining the goals and the need for information is mostly expressed whereas the ability of collecting and storing of the information is weakest. Blocked-data ANOVA shows that the various information abilities under SCONUL evaluation model differ significantly (p = 0.000 for α = 0.05). The ability of determining the goals and the need for information and the ability of projecting process of searching information are based on metacognitive thinking skills whereas the ability of collecting and storing of the information and the ability to deal with the information in professional and ethical manner are based on cognitive thinking skills. The metacognitive abilities of new generation based on the information are better expressed than cognitive ones. The statistical significance of the difference has been confirmed by blocked-data ANOVA.