European Journal of Radiography (2009) 1, 43e47

ava i lab le at www.sc ienced i rec t . com

j ourna l homepage : h t tp : / / ees .e lsev i er . com/e j rad i

REVIEW

Information literacy skills: Medical radiation sciencestudents and the internet

Nadine Thompson*, Sarah Lewis, Patrick Brennan, John Robinson

University of Sydney, PO Box 170, LIDCOMBE NSW 1825, Australia

Received 20 April 2009; received in revised form 24 June 2009; accepted 24 July 2009

KEYWORDSInformation source;Checklist;Information sourceevaluation;Diagnostic Radiography;Nuclear Medicine;Radiation Therapy

* Tel.: þ61 2 9351 9502; Fax: þ61 2E-mail address: ntho2308@uni.syd

1756-1175/$36 Crown Copyright ª 20doi:10.1016/j.ejradi.2009.07.001

Abstract Medical radiation science (MRS) professionals are required to maintain a highstandard of knowledge and therefore need satisfactory information literacy skills. Informationliteracy skills are required to seek, evaluate and synthesise information sources. With the vastamount of information that can be accessed it is important to ensure students are taught howto identify and locate information sources and evaluate them for credibility. Recent studies haveshown that students prefer to access information sources on the internet via a search engine,often not considering the credibility of the information they are accessing. The informationsources that are available on the internet are unfiltered, and the content of a website can beinaccurate and unreliable. There are numerous methods available for students to evaluate infor-mation sources for credibility and accuracy, and these should be considered before acceptingpresented data at face value. In the rapidly changing field of medical radiation science, gradu-ates must be independent learners who can locate relevant information and perform criticalanalysis of information sources. To achieve this information literate students must be cultivated.Crown Copyright ª 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Euro-med Congress forRadiographers. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Medical radiation science (MRS) professionals are requiredto maintain a high standard of knowledge [1]. All MRSprofessionals begin as students and consequently specialattention must be paid to the information literacy skillsthey develop at a university level. In the Australian andNew Zealand Information Literacy Framework, information

9351 9146.ney.edu.au (N. Thompson).

09 Published by Elsevier Ltd on be

literacy is described as an understanding and set of abilitiesenabling individuals to recognise the need for informationand to have the capacity to locate, evaluate, and effec-tively use the needed information [2]. A person who isinformation literate in the research process is able tosatisfy information needs by finding appropriate informa-tion [3]. Clearly, information literacy skills are required toseek, evaluate and synthesise information sources.

There are two essential components that make upinformation literacy: the ability to locate the best possibleinformation and the skills to evaluate it appropriately. MRSprofessionals must be able to locate appropriate

half of Euro-med Congress for Radiographers. All rights reserved.

44 N. Thompson et al.

information sources using a variety of resources, ensuringthat their method for locating sources is providing themwith the best possible information. Poor skills in this areamay result in newly acquired knowledge being incompleteand omitting vital information [4].

Parallel to the ability to locate information sources isthe ability to be able to evaluate them aptly. Knowingwhere students find information sources and under-standing why they utilise certain methods to find theirinformation will enable academics to guide them andencourage proper source evaluation before it is taken asbeing credible and accurate. This article purposely placesfocus on the desire of students to locate informationsources on the internet and the available methods toevaluate these sources.

The Internet as an information source forstudents

Today’s university students are encouraged to make themost of computer technology and the use of online sources.However, this can prompt students to de-value publishedbooks, peer-reviewed journal articles and the sources ofinformation they are locating. In 1998, when the use of theinternet was not as common as it is today, David Rothen-berg described his disgust at the way the internet hadchanged his student’s research papers. Noting that whena bibliography has been based primarily on informationcollected from the internet, there are no books cited, withmaterial that is frequently out of date [5].

The encouragement to use online sources and becomecomputer literate, as well as the instant availability ofa plethora of facts and figures, has contributed to students’willingness to use the internet as a source of information.Recent studies have shown that students prefer to accesstheir information sources online. A study by Callinan foundthat undergraduate biology students place high importanceon the use of websites as a source of information, with 90%of final year students indicating they access the internet forinformation more regularly than any other source [6]. Inanother study students were documented to reference thefirst ten reasonably relevant items that they find on theinternet and put little thought into what they are citing [7].Similarly, Metzger and colleagues found that students useweb-based information for a variety of purposes eventhough they are aware that it is not particularly credible,when compared to other information sources available, anddo not evaluate the information [8]. It was also found thatthe primary consideration of student’s when evaluatingsources is to find a source that is easy to understand, easilyfound and readily available [7]. Grimes and Boening supportthe above findings stating that ‘‘students find Webresources easily accessible and convenient without needingthe intervention or assistance of a librarian’’ [9].

It is these qualities that students find in search engines likeGoogle. A study by Griffiths and Brophy identifies that 45% ofstudents used Google as their primary source for locatinginformation compared to 10% of students using the universitycatalogue [10]. This study goes on to conclude that there islittle awareness by students to locate information in alter-native ways and that search engine routes remain the most

preferred methods even after other methods have beenattempted. Although it is generally regarded that a searchengine is an effective way of finding information on theinternet, Machill and colleagues highlight that this approachfacilitates the retrieval process but the selection process andlisting criteria are hidden from the user resulting in twoproblems: the user does not understand the validity of thesearch results and does not understand where the listed siteshave come from [11]. Generally students still prefer to usea search engine even though they are aware that the infor-mation sources may not be reliable or accurate. It is notacceptable to locate all information from the internet as thisdoes not provide the best possible information such as thatfound in peer-reviewed literature.

Information sources on the internet

The information that is available on the internet has no pre-determined accuracy; the content is governed only by theauthor. Brettle and Gambling warn readers that ‘‘althoughthere is vast potential for obtaining information via theinternet, it is unregulated and much of the Informationfound may be unreliable’’ [4]. Several articles have beenpublished which aim to demonstrate that the use of theinternet to find information sources must only be done withgreat caution. As any person or group could create a web-site, there is no assurance that what has been written isaccurate or without bias [12]. This is reiterated in an articleby Carlile and Jervie Sefton who state that one of the keyeffects of the Internet is the emergence of individuals,rather than institutions as publishers of information [13].

It is clear that the internet holds information withunknown accuracy, however this is not only a problem forstudents, it is also a problem for anyone seeking healthrelated data. Davison discusses the challenges the internethas created for nutrition professionals with consumersaccessing potentially misleading and inaccurate informa-tion [14]. Cooke examined the problems associated withhealth and medical information available on the internetand suggests that it is essential for potential users torecognise that internet-based resources cannot replace thehigh-quality materials available from libraries [15].

The internet with all its faults does indeed provide a vastamount of useful information. Turner and colleagues notethat the internet has enabled fast and easy access toevidence-based information through the introduction of theNational Electronic Library for Health [16]. Others haveestablished a list of reputable websites, such as Litt forRadiology related information sources [17].

The internet has also changed with the introduction ofWeb 2.0, collectively known as social software, whichincorporates web applications such as blogs, social book-marking, discussion forums and wikis: a website that allowsanyone to contribute, collaborate or edit information [18].Sethi states that ‘‘it’s [web 2.0] about a dynamic, inter-active and pulsating system wherein ordinary people likeyou and me can convey things and get responses. You canedit, contribute and work on any article you’d like atWikipedia or blogs instantly’’ [19].

It must be pointed out that Sethi did not say that wikisare appropriate information sources for student research

Information literacy skills 45

assignments and it should be stressed that Wikipedia’spolicy to let anyone create or edit content could cause theinformation to be inaccurate, misleading or incorrect [20].Interestingly, the Australian Institute of Radiography hasadvertised the website WikiRadiography as an ‘‘excellentreference’’ in their September 2008 Spectrum magazine[21]. Which leads to the question, is the information ona wiki site credible? To actually determine whether aninformation source is credible and contains reliable accu-rate information an evaluation process is required.

Evaluating internet information sources

All information sources need to be evaluated for quality, cred-ibility and accuracy, especially those found on the internet.Students are unskilled and perhaps unwilling to make the effortto evaluate information sources found on the internet [9]. Theinformation that has been found on the internet has beenassociated with low quality information [22]. Students need toemploy a form of information source evaluation.

There are many methods available to evaluate aninformation source and students must be taught how to usethese, especially because they are so determined to use theinternet rather than journal databases to locate informa-tion. The most common method for evaluation in Univer-sities is any form or variation on the traditional checklist.The traditional checklist teaches students to look forpurpose, audience, source, site sponsor, content, depthand currency [13]. Almost all Universities will have theirown guidelines for evaluating internet information sourcesand most use a list similar to the checklist proposed byLynch, however, a study by Kunst and colleagues tested thereliability of the checklist by searching for 5 commonhealth topics and found that this method had only slight ormoderate correlation with the accuracy of the informationon the websites examined [23].

It has been said that the use of the internet by studentsis unavoidable and that students will continue to usewhatever search method is the fastest and the only way toovercome this is to ensure they have a fast simple way toverify the information source, which is the checklist [24].Conversely, another method has been proposed whichfocuses on a contextual approach to ensure sourcequality, this is corroboration. Any source can be used, nomatter where it comes from, as long as several othersources can be found that say the same thing [25]. Thiscorroboration method encourages students to search notonly for one information source that supports their argu-ment, but several so that the statements they are makingin assignments are supported by more than one informa-tion source.

Looking back at the example of WikiRadiography asa credible information source, if a student were to use thetraditional checklist or any of its similarities the studentwould not consider using WikiRadiography as a site forreference, conversely using a corroboration method, suchas that proposed by Meola the information on the sitecould be validated. However, there is a significantdiscrepancy within corroboration which must be emphas-ised. If poor quality information sources are used tocorroborate information then this does not ensure

accuracy and may not be a good method for evaluation forstudents who are unable or unwilling to find qualityinformation sources.

There are numerous other theories about source eval-uation available in the literature such as one thatpromotes the idea that students need to be criticalthinkers [26]. If students understand how information isproduced and distributed then they will understand thevariety of information sources available. Perhaps it is thepublishers’ own responsibility to ensure informationsource credibility. A website could be set up to demon-strate the credibility of the information by presentingcredentials, quality rating awards, and highlighting links toother credible websites which support the information[27]. The fact that evaluation is not being properly per-formed on Internet information means that questionableinformation is being used inappropriately and good infor-mation is being disregarded, because trust in the infor-mation is lacking [28].

Students and internet accuracy

In some literature there is a significant interest in theinformation literacy skills of undergraduate studentscompared to students with previous tertiary study experi-ence. A comparison study conducted by Liu and Huangfound that undergraduate students predominantly rely onthe author’s name/reputation/affiliation as well as websitereputation, whereas graduate students were more con-cerned with checking information accuracy/quality whenexamining the credibility of the internet information sourcethey are using [29]. Urquhart and colleagues agree thatundergraduate students prefer to use search engines andorganisational websites and that the only way to ensurestudents use accurate information sources from theinternet is to familiarise students with the properties ofa credible website through electronic information assign-ments and close guidance from a librarian or tutor [30]. Ifthe method for finding good resources is made easy thenstudents will be more likely to avoid the bad resources onthe internet [9]. Others suggest that if academic staff aregoing to ensure students have an understanding of qualityinformation sources and actually access them, thenmethods for searching peer-reviewed information needs tobe changed to be parallel to a search engine, which isclearly the method students prefer [10]. The lack of anappropriate and assured method to evaluate informationsources requires librarians and academics to link high-quality web resources with other high-quality libraryresources. They need to emphasise the need for students tobecome familiar with a variety of electronic databases sothey can become confident when using them and hencemore likely to locate professional literature, which hasalready gone through a peer-review process. Students needto learn the value of peer-reviewed literature.

Information literacy and MRS professionals

There is currently a paucity of literature published specifi-cally looking at the information literacy skills of MRSprofessionals. However, there are a few studies that must be

46 N. Thompson et al.

discussed. Shanahan [22] found that the information literacyskills of Radiography students were not well developed withstudents only accessing a nominal number of resources, andprimarily the internet, to locate information [23]. Shanahan[22] decided that a learning intervention, focussing ondeveloping the information literacy skills of the cohort, wasnecessary to create independent learners capable of lifelonglearning in professional practice. Following the learningintervention it was found that students were more likely touse the electronic databases to find professional literatureand were more confident with their skills [23].

Another paper by Shanahan found that after an elec-tronic information skills intervention, which was developedto enhance students ability to evaluate internet informa-tion sources and engage them in database searching, thatstudents were more likely to use a wide variety of elec-tronic databases to locate information sources andincreased the number of criteria employed when evaluatingwebsites [31]. Clearly, these interventions are enhancingthe information literacy skills of the students and thereforethis model should be considered as a possible addition to allMRS academic programs. With proper guidance all studentsshould be information literate.

The requirement to be information literate also extendsto current MRS professionals. Shanahan and colleaguesestablished that MRS professionals were more comfortableto locate information sources on the internet whencompared to evaluating that information [32]. The MRSprofessionals also recognised a need for skill developmentin this area. This study demonstrates a need to ensure notonly students but also professionals have confidence intheir information searching skills and are comfortable usingelectronic databases to locate professional literature.

Summary

Students prefer to use the internet to search for informa-tion sources, in particular they tend to use search enginesrather than electronic databases or gateways. Althoughthere is much information available on the internet that isuseful, there is also a vast amount of information which isinaccurate, unverified and potentially misleading. For thisreason it is essential for students to be taught the value ofrigorous literature searching and the importance of carefulinformation evaluation, in other words they must beinformation literate. This is a requirement for a competentMRS professional.

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