Nature of the literature on information literacy education in developing countries

Abstract

Information literacy education (ILE) in developing countries has increasingly become a topic of discussion in recent years. However, ILE programmes have been taken directly from those of Western countries without considering local contextual factors. The Western style ILE programmes do not fit the developing country contexts. To conduct more effective ILE programmes in developing countries, the planners need support from the literature. The review of the literature helps to know that there has not been any research that considers the nature of the literature on ILE in developing countries. So the study is conducted to fill in the literature gap. Its main objectives are to support the planners of ILE in developing countries with some knowledge regarding to the main themes and issues that are being addressed by the professionals and practitioners. To meet those objectives, content analysis was used as a research technique to analyse articles published in relevant conferences and journals in the period of 1990-2006. The eight stages of conceptual content analysis suggested by Wilkinson and Birmingham (2003, p.72-76) was applied in the coding process. A mixed method approach was used for analyzing data to answer the main research question: what is the nature of the literature on ILE in developing countries?. To answer the research question, the researcher: (1) explored the distribution of the sample articles by year of publication, continents, countries, and types of libraries; and (2) identify the key themes and issues addressed in the literature. The findings show that four prominent themes have been elicited from the literature on ILE in developing countries: (1) the need for ILE; (2) definitions of IL in developing countries; (3) the barriers to ILE programmes; and (4) ILE programmes: practices and suggestions. Under each theme are issues that support the theme. The key theme was decided based on the number of issues within it and the importance of those issues to the planners of ILE programmes in developing countries. This way, the third theme (barriers to ILE programmes) was chosen as key them of the prominent themes across the literature. The findings of this study supports planners of ILE with the literature on ILE in developing countries in that it helps: (1) to raise the awareness of the need for ILE in developing countries, (2) to have better understanding of ILE programmes, and (3) to be aware of the barriers to ILE programmes in developing countries.