A Study Of Relationship Between College English Teachers' Information Literacy And Their Beliefs On Information Technology-Assisted English Teaching

Information literacy (IL), first proposed by Paul G. Zurkowski (1974), has already became an essential competence of individuals in this information-based society. The rapid growth and enthusiastic uptake of the information technology (IT) in education, with the corresponding avalanche of available information, has seen a much wider understanding of the importance of IL in the academic community. Then, against the backdrop of new web-based college English instruction, college English teachers'IL level should be first investigated for the present situation and be enhanced then by all feasible measures as it is the key among keys in this new model. Moreover, teachers'beliefs on Information Technology-assisted English teaching can also determine their adoption of IT-assisted English teaching model. By means of quantitative and qualitative methodology, the present study sets out to investigate the present situation of college English teachers IL, their beliefs on Information Technoloty in English teaching and to examine the underlying relationship between teachers'IL and their beliefs.This thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter one is a brief introduction, which illustrates the research background, the significance of the study, the aim of the study and the outline of the study. Chapter two concerns itself with the literature review from the perspective of information literacy and teachers'beliefs both abroad and at home. Chapter three presents the theoretical framework of the present study.Chapter four elaborates the issues concerning research design. Illuminated by the previous studies and Information Literacy Standards formulated by Council of Australian University Librarians (2001), together with Teachers'Beliefs Questionnaires of Chen Bingbing (2007) and Ming-Mu kuo (2008), college English teachers'information questionnaire and teachers'beliefs on Information Technology-assisted English teaching questionnaire were developed. The validity and reliability of them were confirmed after conducting principle components analysis, Cornbach alpha analysis and correlation analysis of items.Chapter five constitutes the main body of this thesis, in which the results got from the data analyses are presented. The results are enumerated as follows: (1) college English teachers'information literacy level is high (M=3.714), which is highest in relation to the dimension of―Information Ethic‖and lowest of―Generating Information Ability‖. (2) College English teachers hold strong beliefs on information technology in English teaching (M=3.678), which is strongest in relation to the dimension of―Teaching Effect Beliefs‖and weakest of―Learning Effect Beliefs‖. (3) College English teachers'information literacy is significantly positively correlated with teachers'beliefs (r=.661**). (4) Regression analysis shows that teachers'IL can account for 56.5% (R~2=.565) of the variance of teachers'beliefs. Multiple linear regression analysis shows that information awareness is the significant predictor of conception beliefs (β=.648), generating information ability is the significant predictor of learning effect beliefs and teaching effect beliefs (β=.501, .605), searching information ability is the significant predictor of behavior beliefs (β=.286) and information knowledge is the significant predictor of classroom beliefs (β=.594).Finally the thesis winds up with the conclusions, implications and limitations of the present study that are pointed out in Chapter six.