A COMPARISON OF 3 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION FOR ACQUIRING INFORMATION SKILLS

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of formal instruc tion for acquiring library study skills at elementary school level. Fo r this purpose, the study examines the significant differences in the performances of library study skills in fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grad e students comparing resource-based and no library study skills, and n on-integrated and no library study skills instruction. Samples were dr awn from six elementary schools located in the Metropolitan Toronto ar ea consisting of 300 students in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades. T he data were collected during the fall term 1994 using the instrument of the School Library/Media Skills Test developed by Hyland, and were analysed using ANOVA (analysis of variance). The Scheffe test of three -way interaction showed that the performance of the sixth-grade studen ts in resource-based instruction was significantly higher than that of students in no library study skills instruction for all the skills (p < 0.01 to p < 0.0001). No significant differences, however, were foun d in the performance of the sixth-grade students between non-integrate d and no library study skills instruction. For the fourth-and fifth-gr ade students, there were no significant differences to be found betwee n resource-based and no library study skills, as well as between non-i ntegrated and no library study skills instruction. It was demonstrated that resource-based instruction was the most effective approach for a cquiring library study skills not only compared with no library study skills instruction, but also compared with non-integrated instruction. Although it was impossible to define the learning growth due to the c ross-sectional design of the presented study, it was demonstrated that the highest learning growth during the three years from fourth to six th grades was in resource-based instruction and the lowest was in no l ibrary study skills instruction.