Student Confidence/Overconfidence in the Research Process

Librarians with instructional responsibilities will base information literacy session content upon course syllabi and teaching faculty's assessments of student readiness. Often students' self-perceived competencies do not factor into the lesson planning process. The aim of this project is to collect the levels of self-confidence for a group of students who are primarily entering health care professions. This study observes students' levels of self-confidence in performing research-related activities and their corresponding ability to correctly answer content questions for those tasks. Students' self-confidence ratings are not reliable indicators for information literacy competence. The confidence levels for information literacy tasks of students entering health care professions may have clinical implications for future practice.