Enhancing information literacy of university students: Do male students benefit more than their female peers?

Despite the importance of information literacy (IL) competence in shaping/determining university students’ success in this technology era, to foster university students IL competency through higher education remains a challenging goal for educators to achieve. This study was an exploratory intervention study in nature aiming to cultivate university students’ IL through a general education course in Hong Kong (N=40). A mixed research method was used. An innovative feature of this study was its development of a short scale (6 items) to assess students' IL competency enhancement as not only a product, but also a process. Male students achieved higher IL scores in both process and product domains of the IL competency scale, but not statistically significant. Qualitative data provided detailed information revealing these university students’ IL improvements. Implications are discussed in relation to challenges and chances of IL enhancement in higher education. Copyright © 2018 CESHK.