Addressing below proficient information literacy skills: Evaluating the efficacy of an evidence-based educational intervention

•Workshop increased skills and awareness of IL as a definable skill set.•Increases in skill did not move participants into the “proficient” skill range.•Workshop did not result in recalibrated self-views of ability.•Instruction based on self-generated queries can affect imposed information seeking.•Multiple exposures to IL instruction are needed to affect change.

Over the course of three years, an educational intervention was developed to teach information literacy (IL) skills, change perceptions of IL, and to recalibrate self views of the abilities of first year college students who demonstrate below proficient information literacy skills. The intervention is a modular workshop designed around the three-step analyze, search, evaluate (ASE) model of information literacy, which is easy to remember, easy to adapt to multiple instructional situations, and can provide a foundation for building information literacy skills. Summative evaluation of the intervention demonstrates that students who attend the workshop see an increase in skills and awareness of information literacy as a skill set. Increases in skills, however, were not sufficient to move participants into the proficient range. While workshop participants were able to reassess preworkshop skills, skills gained in the workshop did not result in recalibrated self-views of ability. Like the development of skills, the recalibration of self-assessments may require multiple exposures to information literacy instruction.