Investigation of information literacy levels of EFL teachers

The study investigated the information literacy levels of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers based on such variables as age, gender, faculty of graduation, education level, level of school and years of experience in profession. 208 EFL teachers participated in the study by filling in the scale shared either online or face-to-face. Mixed method was applied in the study. For the quantitative data, demographic information survey and Information Literacy Scale (Adıgüzel, 2011) were used. The data obtained were analysed on IBM SPSS 22 package program, and descriptive statistics were used to provide the scores of the participants. As the measurement didn't fit normal distributions, Kruskal Wallis and Mann Whitney U tests were utilized in order to test the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. For the qualitative data, 20 of the participants, who volunteered to take part in the interview, were asked four open-ended questions and follow-up questions in order to determine their opinions about 21st century skills, information literacy and its impacts on professional development and the way EFL teachers teach the language. The quantitative data showed that there was no statistically significant relationship between information literacy levels of EFL teachers and age, gender, faculty of graduation, education level, level of school and years of experience in profession. However, in the legal and ethical regulations in information use subscale, the statistics indicated that female EFL teachers had higher information literacy level than their male counterparts. The qualitative data showed that most of the interviewees had heard of the term 21st century skills, yet only one of them stated information literacy as a 21st century skill. Most of them also stated that they were familiar with the term information literacy, but they were unable to define the term broadly. The interviewees were asked whether information literacy levels of EFL teachers had an effect on their professional development, and the way they teach the langauge, and nearly all of them stated that it would positively affect them.