INFORMATION LITERACY: A CHANGE AGENT IN NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

The importance of information literacy in educational development cannot be over-estimated. The information literacy program's mission is to support, promote and enhance teaching, learning and research in universities. This work studies information literacy as an agent of change in Nigerian University education. Descriptive survey research design was adopted. Four research questions guided the study. The total population from which sample was drawn is 3000 student library users of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, and Paul University both in Anambra State. A sample of 100 students was used. Accidental sampling technique was adopted. A questionnaire entitled “Information Literacy Questionnaire (ILQ)” was developed by the researchers, validated by experts and used for data collection. Cronbach Alpha was used to obtain a reliability coefficient of 0.84. Data were collected and analyzed using simple mean score, with 2.50 benchmark set for accepted or rejected items. The major findings of the study show that the students possess information literacy knowledge; information literacy is an agent of change in education. Low level of computer literacy amongst others was identified as impediment to information literacy. Based on the finding, the study recommended among others that information literacy should be included in tertiary institutions curriculum, with lecturers and librarians teaching it. Students, lecturers and librarians should be computer literate.