Closing the digital divide: An assessment of urban graduate teacher education students' knowledge of information literacy and their readiness to integrate information literacy into their teaching

The purpose of this study was to assess the information literacy knowledge of graduate general and special education students and their readiness to integrate information literacy into their classroom teaching. This descriptive study used a convenience sample of 126 graduate teacher education students enrolled in similar graduate and special education credential programs at two private universities in northern California. The majority of the participants were interns or teaching while going to school.; The researcher surveyed 126 participants over a three-week period during the 2007 spring semester. Two surveys were administered: the Beile Test of Information Literacy for Education and the researcher designed Readiness to Integrate the Knowledge of Information Literacy into Teaching Survey. Both instruments were piloted at a public urban university that offers graduate teacher and special education to demographically similar students.; The results of this study suggest that graduate general and special education students did not differ in their knowledge of information literacy as measured by the Beile Test of Information Literacy for Education (B-TILED). Graduate teacher education students with training in information literacy did not differ in their knowledge of information literacy from those without training as measured by the B-TILED. The majority of graduate teacher education students in this study scored at the minimally acceptable level of competence in information literacy but felt ready to integrate information literacy into their teaching. Participants who taught in higher socioeconomic schools scored higher on the B-TILED compared to those who taught in low socioeconomic schools. In the context of the digital divide, this suggests that participants who taught in high SES schools had more access to technology and web resources and as a result scored higher in information literacy competence. There was no correlation between graduate general and special education students' scores on the B-TILED and their scores on the Readiness to Integrate the Knowledge of Information Literacy into Teaching Survey.; Implications for academic libraries' information literacy teaching programs and the inclusion of information literacy into graduate teacher education programs are discussed and suggestions are given for future research.