Information literacy capabilities of lower secondary school students in Slovenia

The focus of the paper is on the study of differences between information literacy (IL) capabilities and IL self-assessment among Slovenian lower secondary school students. A total of 229 students coming from eight urban and suburban schools answered the tests. The shortened Information Literacy Test (ILT-B) used in this study contained selection of 14 multiple-choice questions relevant to lower secondary students. Each question follows a question on its difficulty level on 1 to 5 scale. The results show that the students perceive themselves as above average, whether the ILT showed only average IL skills. The results confirm the Dunning-Krueger effect, whereby unskilled individuals overestimate their abilities, while skilled individuals underestimate their achievements. Another counterintuitive result was that students who were online longer had lower IL knowledge but a higher opinion of it. Based on the results of the study we can conclude students should be explicitly taught IL skills and corresponding behavior.