Models for Teaching Information Literacy: A Comparative Review of the Top Six Models

Abstract

Information literacy is a necessary prerequisite for achieving educational, occupational, economic and personal goals in society. It has also become an essential skill to achieve individual goals. Many models have been designed for developing these crucial skills but few published scholarly studies have explored their effectiveness and none have compared them. The present paper reviewed the literature to select the most commonly used models for teaching information literacy, and analysed the reported strengths and weaknesses of the top six models. The top six models are the Information Search Process, the Big6 information skills, the Seven Pillars of Information Literacy, the Pathways to Knowledge, the PLUS model, and the Seven Faces of Information Literacy. The Information Search Process knowledge model stood out as the most useful prescriptive model especially through its ability across disciplines, beginning at the elementary educational level and extensively university level. The paper also highlights the values of integrating information literacy into curriculum development to enhance students’ learning experience and to develop skills and abilities necessary for the rapidly changing information environment of the twenty-first century.