Higher Education and Assessment: Why is information literacy important?

A recent nation-wide survey and study asked employers to rate critical information literacy skills from their perspective, fnding the most important to be innovation, critical thinking and using quality information, and collaboration. Every indicator suggested that information literacy instruction should be integrated into core higher education priorities and not merely a peripheral skill training function.

Employers' Perspectives on the Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills of New Entrants to the 21st Century U.S. Workforce

"This guide summarizes the challenges and opportunities that, if left unaddressed, will curtail our competitiveness and diminish our standing in the world. The warning signals are blinking red. We can thrive in this century only with informed leadership and concerted action that prepares Americans to compete..."

Survey Conducted by the American Management Association on the importance of 21st Century Skills in the business world

The annual Horizon Report is a collaborative effort between the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) and the New Media Consortium (NMC). The report identifies and describes important developments in technology likely to have a large impact over the coming five years in education around the world, focusing on trends, challenges, and developments in higher education.

Project Information Literacy (PIL) is "a national and ongoing series of research studies that investigates what it is like being a college student in the digital age." They collect data about how students find and use information -- their needs, strategies, practices, and workarounds -- for course work and solving information problems that arise in their everyday lives.

P21's mission is "to serve as a catalyst for 21st century learning to build collaborative partnerships among education, business, community and government leaders so that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills they need to thrive in a world where change is constant and learning never stops."

Gathers success stories that demonstrate how libraries and museums are transforming their institutions and making a difference in their communities by helping citizens build 21st century skills such as information, communications and technology literacy, critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, civic literacy, and global awareness.

An ethnographic study of undergraduate student life focusing on library services by Henry Delcore, James Mullooly, and Michael Scroggins.

A 2012 Project Information Literacy Research Report by Alison Head which investigates what it is like to be a student in the digital age.

While “papers happen,” these librarians wanted to know how they happen. This is an ethnographic study of how undergraduate students write their research papers.

Presents information on a study which focused on the disparity between students and faculty expectations in doing research.

A study of over 500 U.S. college students in first–year writing classes asking why they select certain online research resources as their favorite, offering a more complex picture of student motivation than popular accounts of these students as disinterested, lazy, and ignorant.

Pew Research Center reports and data on the Millennial generation, those born after 1980 and the first generation to come of age in the new millennium, including information about their behavior, attitudes, and influences.