Impact of Information Literacy Training on Academic Self-Efficacy and Learning Performance of University Students in a Problem-Based Learning Environment

Problem-based learning (PBL) has emerged as an innovative educational approach and it is increasingly gaining its prominence in the higher education in Malaysia. Past research shows that academic self-efficacy has strong and positive influence on students’ motivation and academic achievement. This study aims to examine the influence of information literacy skills training on academic self-efficacy and learning performance of university students in PBL approach in the Physics course. The Solomon Four –group design was used with 78 students in the American Degree Transfer Program of Taylor’s University College in Malaysia participated in this study.The study investigated whether causation existed between information literacy skill training and academic selfefficacy as well as between information literacy training and learning performance. The independent variable was the information literacy training. The dependent variables were the mean academic self-efficacy score in a self-reporting and numerically measurable questionnaire developed by Klobas and learning performance scores which constitutes learning satisfaction, learning attitude, and learning score. A between group Factorial ANOVA and one-way ANOVA showed that the treatment of information literacy skills did have an impact on academic self-efficacy and learning performance. The findings showed that there was a cause-and-effect relationship between information literacy training and improvement in academic self-efficacy and learning performance of university students in PBL environment. This study confirmed that information literacy skill training may help raise the academic self-efficacy and learning performance of university students, which is essential to the learning process in PBL.