Factors affecting university students’ information literacy education: An empirical study using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis

Abstract

With the continuous development of information technology, information literacy education is becoming more and more important for university students. However, information literacy education in Chinese universities is still in the development stage and the cultivation effect needs to be improved. Therefore, this study takes the teaching of Information Retrieval as an example, based on constructivist learning theory and social exchange theory, reveals the influential factors related to the cultivation effect and explores the causal rela-tionship between each variable and the cultivation effect through a qualitative comparative analysis research method with a configura-tion perspective. This study finds that university students in information literacy education can be classified into four categories: context-driven, class-guidance, meaning-realised and motivation satisfaction. For these four types of university students, this study proposes corresponding countermeasures for information literacy cultivation in order to enhance the effectiveness of cultivation.

Keywords

Constructivist learning theory (CLT)information literacy education (ILE)qualitative comparative analysis (QCA)social exchange theory (SET)university libraries

1. Introduction

Information literacy (IL) is a comprehensive ability of people to use modern information technology in a rational way for information searching, information evaluation and information processing when they can identify their own information needs. It reflects the comprehensive quality of information mining, analysis, utilisation and integration into community learning [1]. With the development of the digital information age, IL has become a core and fundamental indicator in the competence system of innovative talents. University students are the bulk of our future innovative talents. The cultivation of innovative talents is one of the missions of universities, and countries around the world have incorporated university students’ IL cultivation into the system of cultivating innovative talents [2]. For example, The City University of New York has launched a mobile IL project for mobile information literacy education (ILE) [3]. University of Waterloo has developed an application for IL [4]. With new achievements in international ILE practices and theories, Chinese universities are offering ILE-related information retrieval courses in accordance with the internationalisation of ILE rules and objectives. Except for the traditional training seminars and offline courses, the forms of ILE in universities are gradually diversified. Universities are optimising the forms of ILE and enhancing the IL level of students through new teaching modes such as massive open online course (MOOC) and flipped classroom.

However, Chinese universities are also facing some problems at this stage, such as insufficient teachers, and the lack of clear teaching plans and curriculum objectives for IL courses [5,6]. The above-mentioned problems lead to an unreasonable design of IL teaching and learning, and university students do not attach importance to the course and lack of learning initiative, which further makes ILE unsatisfactory. Improving university students’ IL is a complex and systematic process. It is difficult to achieve success by simply enriching education forms. In fact, the use of information retrieval courses to develop university students’ IL is not only subject to the form of the courses. Enhancing the effectiveness of courses is a complex and systematic process that is influenced by the synergy and concurrency of many factors, such as course quality, student needs and teaching level [7,8].

Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is a research method that addresses the complexity of causality from a holistic perspective, is applicable to uncovering the complexity of antecedent constructs, and combines the strengths of both qualitative and quantitative research approaches in traditional research paradigms [9]. This study introduces QCA into the effectiveness investigation of enhancing IL cultivation. We sought to investigate the relationship between different configurations formed by different variables and the cultivation effectiveness of IL course. We will explore the following three questions: What are the key factors that influence the effectiveness of ILE? What is the causal relationship between the formation of these factors and their effectiveness? How to improve the effectiveness of ILE for university students in a targeted manner?

2. Literature review

Researches on IL of university students focus on the evaluation of IL, the creation of an IL atmosphere in universities and the forms of ILE.

First, the IL assessment of university students is an important indicator to quantify university students’ IL ability, which is the premise and basis for scientifically formulating college students’ IL cultivation plans. The current assessment methods are mainly based on scales and standardised tests, which appear to have low validity and explanatory power, making it difficult to truly grasp the real literacy level of university students [10]. The assessment system of university students’ IL should also keep pace with the times. In recent years, scholars have begun to assess university students’ IL levels by setting up real-life scenarios. For example, the IL ability of university students to use the information skills to solve contextual or game tasks is assessed through real-life situational tasks or game experiences [11,12]. Huang and Peng [13] believe that the evaluation indexes should follow scientific, contemporary, professional and operable, and take the university students of Sun Yat-sen University as the object to construct an IL evaluation system for university students with information awareness, information knowledge, information ability and information morality as the first-level indexes.

Second, the cultivation and enhancement of university students’ IL cannot be achieved without external guidance. Creating a positive and friendly school culture to teach IL will make university students naturally and actively embrace IL, which is why some scholars believe it is important to create an atmosphere for ILE. Bennett [14] believes that IL should be cultivated in universities through collaboration between faculty and academic support staff, curriculum reform, the role of subject leaders, the design of library spaces, the deployment of campus networks and electronic information resources. Yu et al. [15] believes that the more widely information technology is used, the more universities encourage the use of information technology, and the greater the mediating role of information technology education in influencing the IL of teachers and educators. Therefore, the cultivation of university students’ IL is inseparable from the creation of information culture.

Third, some scholars have begun to attach importance to the study of ILE concepts and models. In ILE, it is particularly important to develop university students’ questioning skills, higher-order cognitive skills, and the ability to evaluate, reflect and integrate information sources [16]. Andretta [17] suggests that IL courses should be transformed from teacher-centred to university student–centred, increasing practice and viewing IL development as a key dimension of university students’ career development. Samson [10] believes that ILE should be practice-oriented and should integrate educational approaches with the workplace. In China, ILE is still predominantly in the form of traditional classroom, but new models such as exploratory learning models and MOOC are also being explored [18,19].

To sum up, many scholars have focused on the cultivation mode and concept of university students’ IL, as well as teaching research on teachers’ ability enhancement, while less research has been conducted on whether the course can effectively enhance the effectiveness of students’ IL. From the above introduction, it is clear that ILE in Chinese universities continues to suffer from poor cultivation. In order to solve or avoid this problem, first, we need to understand what factors affect the cultivation effectiveness of IL course. Second, we need to explore how these factors affect the effectiveness of the cultivation. Ultimately, we need to find a solution to the problem of IL cultivation based on the causality between each factor and its effectiveness. Based on the constructivist learning theory (CLT), for IL course, teachers construct IL learning contexts and arrange for learners to complete tasks through collaborative communication to effectively construct the meaning of knowledge in the learning environment.

3. Theory and framework

3.1. Constructivist learning theory

Constructivism is a further development of behaviourism and cognitivism in learning theory, proposed by the psychologist Piaget [20] in the 1960s. Its core idea is learner-centred, emphasising the learners’ active exploration, discovery, communication and active construction of what they have learned. The role of the teachers is to build a learning platform for learners through the appropriate use of teaching resources, to facilitate the active construction of knowledge through collaboration and communication, and to assist learners in solving problems encountered in the process of knowledge construction. According to constructivism, the main elements that influence the construction of learners’ self-knowledge are context, collaboration and communication, and meaning construction. Context is the learning situation that teachers provide for the learners using available learning resources and their own academic literacy to help learners construct new knowledge [21]. For example, hardware and software ensure that the instructional design creates relevant learning contexts for learners. Collaboration and communication refer to learners communicating and cooperating with team members to complete relevant tasks set by the instructor in a context to help learners construct knowledge [22]. Sense-Making Theory emphasises that learners can only complete their self-construction of knowledge if they have a need to make sense of what they have learned [23,24]. Zhou et al. [25] prove that innovative models such as learning in context, learning through problem solving, collaborative learning and interactive teaching are appropriate for ILE.

Combining the connotations of context, collaboration and dialogue, and meaning construction in CLT, this study argues that ILE in universities is actually the construction of IL knowledge systems for university students, and that such knowledge construction includes the cultivation of information awareness and information skills. Teachers in universities should make full use of teaching resources to provide students with learning contexts that support the cultivation of IL, and students complete the tasks of learning contexts through collaboration and communication to eventually build their own IL knowledge and application system.

3.2. Social exchange theory

Social exchange theory (SET) is developed by Homans. He argues that the egoistic, harm-avoiding behaviour of ‘rational people’ is a fundamental principle of human behaviour, and before engaging in social exchange, they will calculate the expected rewards and costs based on the principle of reciprocity in order to decide whether to engage in exchange [26]. Sheng [27] believes that an exchange activity begins formally if both parties to the exchange can receive the expected reward and achieve reciprocity through the act of exchange. SET is widely used in the study of students’ learning behaviour, such as knowledge sharing behaviour, teacher–student interaction behaviour and campus cultural exchange motivations of university students [28,29]. According to SET, we believe that people tend to choose to participate in something when the perceived benefits outweigh the perceived risks, and that individuals will engage in sustained participation behaviour when the process leads to sustained positive benefits, and otherwise refuse to participate. By introducing this concept into our IL cultivation research, we have reason to believe that university students will also measure the ‘benefit–cost’ relationship when receiving ILE and evaluate themselves, their course and educational activities. Therefore, they will be motivated to learn and produce positive learning behaviour when instruction matches their sense of self-identity (SI) and learning motivation (LM).

3.3. Definition of influencing factors

This study is based on the concepts of CLT and SET, as well as combining previous research findings [30,31] to refine the antecedent and outcome variables.

3.4. Teaching design

Teaching design (TD) is a mental guarantee that guides university students into learning contexts. TD is divided into four parts: teaching preparation, teaching activity, teaching feedback and teaching attitude. Teaching preparation means that the teacher needs to draw up a detailed learning plan, learning tasks, learning content and learning objectives before the course begins. Teaching activities are presentations of teaching preparation and timely teacher–student interaction in response to changes in the classroom environment, understanding the learning needs of university students and meeting them in a timely manner [24]. Teaching feedback refers to students’ reflections on the curriculum and serves as a basis for the instructors to improve the quality of the course. Teaching attitudes reflect the importance that instructors attach to the courses and their students [32]. The quality of teaching preparation and activities, as well as the acceptance of feedback, indirectly reflects the attitude of the instructors. TD is the core of the CLT in contextualisation.

3.5. Organisational guarantee

Organisational guarantee (OG) refers to the necessary learning platform, hardware facilities and other material conditions provided by universities for the IL cultivation of university students [33]. The learning platform and hardware facilities provided by universities are important material guarantees for students to collect and use various learning resources and practically test their learning outcomes. At the same time, the university library, as the unit responsible for information retrieval-related courses, its computers, network and multimedia classrooms also provide a good external environment for students to carry out effective blended and personalised teaching. OG is the material basis of contextualisation in CLT.

3.6. Learning motivation

LM can be divided into reciprocity, pleasure, prestige and self-fulfilment motivation according to SET. Reciprocal motivation refers to the motivation to work with team members in learning situations to solve problems, share and exchange learning materials and information, and to inspire and solve problems through student–student and teacher–student interaction in order to achieve mutual progress [34]. Pleasure motivation is the motivation to engage in the construction of IL knowledge as a result of interest and pleasure in learning after learning about IL or learning the courses [35]. Prestige motivation refers to the autonomy and flexibility of the classroom, which can be a stage for students to showcase themselves. Through course learning, task participation and communication support, students are better able to win the attention of others and increase their own prestige motivation [36].

3.7. Self-identity

SI refers to a person’s self-interpretation of his own characteristics, personality, values and outlook on life [37]. The significance of SI is that university students establish clear values, goals and development directions after rational self-assessment and experience a sense of identity in the pursuit of their own goals, which helps individuals pursue the internal consistency in their values, beliefs and behaviours [38]. Based on SET, we believe that students will self-evaluate their own abilities and values. When they believe that the difficulty of ILE matches their abilities, or their values, they will gain a sense of SI and increase their learning effectiveness.

3.8. Team identity

Team identity (TI) refers to the social group to which an individual belongs, and the emotional and value significance that team members bring to the individual [39]. University students apply their knowledge to complete team tasks in different learning situations through in-depth interaction and cooperation under the guidance of the instructors, a sense of responsibility, honour and pride and gain the identity of team members, thus promoting a strong interest in the course.

3.9. Learning benefit

Learning benefit (LB) is an important part of the meaning construction dimension of CLT. We believe that the significance of IL courses is that they are designed to meet the needs of students and help them solve information problems in their lives, studies or work. Individual students’ learning demands may vary according to their own learning goals. When the quality of teaching is improved, it will have a positive effect, thus meeting the differentiated demands of students and enhancing their LBs [40].

3.10. Cultivation effect

Cultivation effect (CE) means that universities encourage students to actively learn the knowledge and skills of IL, prompt them to participate in IL-related activities and use the knowledge and information skills to solve problems in various fields, with the ultimate goal of improving information awareness, enhancing information application capabilities and strictly adhering to information ethics [41]. This study concludes that good IL cultivation in universities is demonstrated by: (1) ILE should meet the learning expectations of university students; (2) The information skills and literacy knowledge can be applied in practice, such as IL competitions and related research and innovation competitions; (3) While actively seeking to improve IL, other university students will be motivated to join in theoretical learning and practical application of IL.

3.11. Framework design

Combining the personal dimensions of the three main dimensions of CLT and SET, this study classifies the variables according to context, collaboration and communication, meaning construction and personal exchange. SI and LM belong to the personal exchange dimension, OG and TD to the contextual dimension, TI to the collaboration and communication dimension, LB to the meaning construction dimension, and the outcome variable is CE. The study will explore the impact of the above variables on the enhancement of the effectiveness of ILE cultivation in universities under different configurations, and eventually propose differentiated guidance strategies based on the configuration results (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Conceptual model.

4. Study design and result

4.1. Study subjects and data collection

Information Retrieval is one of the fundamental courses for IL development in Chinese universities. Information Retrieval is a key course for cultivating students’ information awareness, information competence and information ethics. It aims to help students master the basic methods and skills of information retrieval and utilisation through teachers, discussions and online practice, so that university students can have certain scientific research and practical working ability and lay the foundation for study and research. This study takes Information Retrieval as an example and designs a questionnaire (Appendix 1) based on university students’ performance throughout the course in terms of TD, teaching activities, process and outcome assessment and course evaluation or feedback content. We collect corpus data in the form of individual interviews with a class of undergraduates taking Information Retrieval course offered by a library of university science and engineering in order to capture their perceptions and experiences of the course throughout. All of these students have taken the Information Retrieval course. With reference to the QCA requirements for case sources, 32 representative undergraduate students were eventually obtained for this study and these 32 respondents were numbered 1–32 to differentiate the interview data. The 32 representative undergraduate students include 10 female and 22 male students. We get the permission from Review Committee of our institution, and all participants have received informed consent forms. The data in this experiment are only used for experimental research and will not be used for other purposes.

4.2. Research methodology – QCA

QCA is a research method that combines qualitative and quantitative research [42]. QCA is oriented towards cases and the outcome variables they lead to, exploring the configuration of causes that produce a particular outcome variable. The advantage of this method is that it is not very restrictive in terms of sample size requirements, it is also able to examine combinations of conditions and modes of influence in complex social phenomena and explain specific cases, and it is no longer bound by an ideal model that assumes the existence of an optimal solution, so it does not test hypotheses by comparing the utility of the fit of the measured data with the hypothetical model [43].

We have adopted a branch of QCA, fuzzy set QCA (fsQCA), as the research method for this study. The main reasons for this are as follows. First, the factors affecting CE of ILE are numerous and complex, and traditional quantitative analysis can only examine the intrinsic relationships among individual variables and cannot deal with the combined causality between each variable and the outcome variable CE. In contrast, QCA can be used to examine different pathways of influence based on the same outcome variable by generating combinations of antecedent variables, expanding the explanatory space of the antecedent variables. Second, the sample size used in this study falls within the small sample size range and the complex causality between the combined variables and the outcome variables can be better handled using this approach. Third, the causal paths constructed in this study are mostly continuous variables and are not temporal in nature. The fsQCA can calibrate the variable affiliation to any value between 0 and 1, which is more accurate and efficient compared with clear set QCA (csQCA).

4.3. Variable setting and calibration

Based on the interview data, we obtain the mean of the initial assignment of TD, OG, LM, SI, TI, LB and CE, and kept the mean at three degrees of precision to obtain the coded values [44]. Referring to the three anchor points set by leading scholars [45,46], the three anchor points of the target set were set as the upper quartile (fully affiliated point (FAP), 95%), median (crossover point (CP), 50%) and lower quartile (fully unaffiliated point (FUAP), 5%) of the mean of each variable (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Indicator descriptions and calibration values for outcome and condition variables.

Variable			Description	Anchor point
Variable			Description	FAP	CP	FUAP
Condition variable	Context	TD	University students’ evaluation of teachers’ teaching preparation, teaching activities, teaching feedback and teaching attitudes	4.53	5.88	7.00
	Context	OG	University students’ evaluation of the security of software and hardware facilities provided by the university	4.00	6.00	7.00
	Collaboration & communication	TI	Evaluation of university students’ communication or cooperation with others and its effectiveness	4.30	6.00	7.00
	Meaning construction	LB	University students’ evaluation of their learning benefits	4.08	5.83	7.00
	Personal exchange	LM	University students’ motivation for reciprocity, pleasure, self-fulfilment and prestige during the courses	4.22	5.75	7.00
	Personal exchange	SI	University students’ own assessment (ability, learning attitude, study situation, literacy)	3.63	5.75	7.00
Outcome variable	Effectiveness	CE	University students’ mastery of knowledge, tools and skills, application of knowledge and problem solving	4.20	5.80	7.00

4.4. Variable necessity test

The necessity test is one of the methods used to determine the core conditions that lead to the outcome. Consistency is an important measure of necessity and this condition is usually considered necessary when the consistency is greater than 0.9 and sufficient when the consistency is less than 0.9 but greater than 0.8 [45]. The consistency and coverage study of the single antecedent variables obtained through the necessity test found no variables with consistency greater than 0.9, indicating that there are no necessary condition variables for CE enhancement in the antecedent conditions (see Table 2). At the same time, LM and LB are sufficient conditions for CE improvement (i.e. both have a consistency greater than 0.8). The results of the necessity test indicate that high-quality ILE, which can motivate students’ LM and has a meaningful construct towards good (LB) can enhance students’ CE, and also indicate that ILE in universities should not focus on quantity rather than quality. Even if the forms of ILE in universities are more diversified, if the quality of teaching cannot be guaranteed, it is impossible to motivate university students to learn and improve LB, and university students’ IL will not be effectively cultivated.

Table 2.

Results of the necessity test.

Variable	Outcome (CE)
Variable	Consistency	Coverage
OG	0.7397	0.8112
SI	0.7397	0.7833
TD	0.7652	0.7513
TI	0.7809	0.7127
LM	0.8029	0.8450
LB	0.8330	0.8569

CE: cultivation effect; OG: organisational guarantee; SI: self-identity; TD: teaching design; TI: team identity; LM: learning motivation; LB: learning benefit.

4.5. Research result

We obtain complex solution (CS), intermediate solution (IS) and simple solution (SS) by fsQCA. CS is the analysis of the configurations with actual cases without any logical residuals; IS is the analysis of the configurations with actual cases, while incorporating logical residuals consistent with theoretical expectations and empirical evidence; SS is the incorporation of all logical residuals, some of which have no practical significance [43,46]. Therefore, we reasonably chose well-founded IS of moderate complexity as the first choice for research and interpretation [47]. Conditions that are present in both SS and IS are defined as core conditions, while conditions that are present only in IS are defined as auxiliary conditions [48]. We obtain two SSs, TD and TI, and the consistency of both SSs is greater than 0.7. We also gain two SSs, TD and TI (consistency > 0.7), and both appearing in the IS, indicating that the conditional configuration of these two ISs are the core conditions that promote CE enhancement. This suggests that TD and TI play a key role in the CE of IL. This study ultimately presents the results of the conditional configuration analysis of CE (see Table 3), resulting in four ISs.

Table 3.

Result of the conditional configurations analysis for the enhancement of CE.

Variable	Outcome: CE
	A	B	C	D
OG	•	⨂		⨂
SI	⨂		⊗	⨂
TD	●	●	●	⊗
TI	⊗	●	●	●
LM	⊗	⊗	●	●
LB		⊗	●	⊗
Raw coverage	0.2510	0.2788	0.6423	0.2713
Unique coverage	0.0296	0.0104	0.3612	0.0128
Consistency	0.8063	0.7032	0.9280	0.8683
Case (No.)	4, 17	9, 11, 14	29,30, 26, 28, 31, 21, 23, 27, 24	16
Solution coverage	0.7194
Solution consistency	0.7800

CE: cultivation effect; OG: organisational guarantee; SI: self-identity; TD: teaching design; TI: team identity; LM: learning motivation; LB: learning benefit.

• shows the presence of an auxiliary condition; ● shows the presence of a core condition; ⨂shows negative or non-existent auxiliary condition; ⊗shows negative or non-existent core condition; The blank shows that the condition is optional.

The consistency of all four configurations is greater than 0.7 and the raw coverage of each IS is greater than 10%, indicating that all these configurations can explain the sample cases to a greater or lesser extent, so the obtained configurations have good explanatory power for the outcome variable CE. The overall coverage of the configuration results is 0.7194 and the overall consistency is 0.7800 > 0.7, which also indicates that the overall configuration results can explain 71.94% of the cases with strong explanatory power.

5. Discussion

We can derive four configurations of CE enhancement mechanisms for IL in colleges and universities, revealing multiple pathways of influence of CE in ILE in universities. The core conditions we have identified are TD, TI, LM and LB. The ‘~’ indicates that a variable or condition does not exist.

Configuration A:OG*~SI*TD*~TI*~LM. The presence conditions are OG and TD, where the core condition is TD and the auxiliary condition is OG. This configuration indicates that some university students are more concerned with the contextualisation of the course when participating in IL course. The quality of the TDs taught is the primary condition that affects university students’ learning of IL courses, which is supplemented by the OG of the school software and hardware facilities. The quality of the teacher’s teaching depends in part on the school’s OG. We believe that, on one hand, the course credits set by the university can motivate teachers to teach and university students to pursue their studies; On the other hand, the school’s teaching resources are optimised to provide strong support and unlimited possibilities for teachers to carry out diversified and in-depth ILE. This confirms the view of some scholars that building appropriate learning contexts for university students drives ILE [14,15]. Therefore, we can define this type of student as context-driven type.

To improve the IL CE of students, we need to focus on the creation of an IL learning atmosphere and the optimisation of learning conditions for university students. CLT suggests that teachers need to build a school OG-dependent learning environment through TD that contains rich teaching resources and provides cognitive tools for students to ensure that they can interact with this environment and improve their CE [15]. Therefore, we believe that improvements can be made in the following three dimensions. First of all, we should call on universities and libraries to improve their investment in hardware facilities and network facilities, so as to lay a good material foundation for ILE. At the same time, we should pay sufficient attention to ILE, compile and design differentiated teaching materials for university students of different majors, and improve the applicability of teaching materials in ILE. Second, teachers can draw on the blended learning model [49] and build a combined online and offline learning environment by relying on the OG available in colleges and universities to promote cooperative inquiry and meaningful construction among college students, thereby facilitating effective learning. Universities should increase publicity of information quality education, and at the same time actively carry out relevant competitions and lectures to effectively improve college students’ ability to learn and use digital resources, so that they can understand the knowledge, role and importance of IL, and lay a solid foundation for students’ ILE.

Configuration B: ~OG*TD*TI*~LM*~LB. The core conditions for this configuration are TD and SI. This configuration can be explained as that students pay more attention to teachers’ TD, teamwork and communication when the hardware and software facilities of the school are general, and students lack motivation and are not clear about the LB. CLT considers collaboration and communication as a task-based collaborative learning approach [22]. This study argues that teachers should not follow the script, but ought to cultivate students’ independent learning skills. It is an important way to improve students’ CE by encouraging students to solve problems through communication and cooperation through innovative contextual design. Such a teaching style also places higher demands on teachers’ pedagogical skills. Based on the learning characteristics of these students, this study defines them as class-guidance type.

These students need classroom guidance from their teachers to enhance CE. This requires teachers to change their mode of simply informing and imparting knowledge. They need to change their role and teach students to take the lead in the classroom and to guide university students in a supportive capacity to perceive and construct a system of information retrieval knowledge and applications [30]. First, teachers need to improve their pedagogical skills. An excellent teacher is essential for engaging students in IL learning and providing quality teaching. A teacher’s excellent teaching standards and deep academic knowledge will create conviction among students. Due to the universality of IL across disciplines, teachers of IL course should be familiar with the specialist subject knowledge of their students’ corresponding subject categories, in addition to deepening their knowledge of informatics and enhancing their computer skills, while strictly adhering to the general premise of information ethics. Second, teachers can use university library resources to provide students with flexible and independent online courses to initially construct university students’ IL knowledge through information interaction and independent learning. What’s more, teachers make use of the anchored Instruction model in offline courses to set up retrieval problem situations for students in class and build course modules supported by practical objectives and theoretical knowledge. Teachers make full use of learning elements such as situations, team work and student–teacher communication to guide students to solve problems. Finally, teachers can reinforce a sense of cooperative communication through team tasks and debriefings as a form of assessment. At the same time, post-lesson communication and feedback from teachers and students on teaching and learning are encouraged to help teachers adjust and optimise their classroom design.

Configuration C: SI*TD*TI*LM*LB. Configuration C has the highest coverage and consistency of the four configurations and contains the most typical cases, which indicates that the majority of university students prefer this configuration. Regarding the promotion of CE, universities should pay more attention to this configuration. This configuration indicates that university students confirm their suitability for IL courses (i.e. SI exists as an auxiliary condition), LB and LM become important conditions for university students to determine whether they were interested in IL courses. University students believe that they are strongly interested in learning IL courses when they have a strong LM of their own, the quality of the teacher’s delivery and the effectiveness of collaborative team work. They will care about the LB of the course and prefer that the knowledge they learn in the course will help them in their studies, life and work, so the construction of meaning developed through learning is the core of supporting university students to study IL courses. This is why the study defines these students as meaning-realised type.

In order to enhance the CE of such students, we believe that it is crucial for students to effectively acquire useful knowledge and gain maximum meaningful construction in the process of learning IL courses. First, we believe that teachers need to not only make improvements in TD, but also respond to university students’ feedback after class in a timely manner, and to guide them to establish a correct view of learning, adjust their learning methods and study ideas from their learning beliefs and learning goals to maximise LB. Second, universities can set up awards related to IL, formulate corresponding award criteria, so that university students can participate as individuals and teams, choose their own application and practice topics and give certain material rewards such as bonuses or credits to motivate university students to improve their IL level [50]. Finally, university libraries should communicate with each other and cross the cultivation of IL with the cultivation of professional literacy in various disciplines, so as to achieve the organic and synergistic development of IL and professional literacy. In addition, university libraries should cooperate with enterprises (e.g. patent companies, database vendors, information consulting companies and so on) and public cultural departments (e.g. libraries, archives, museums and so on) to provide practical application opportunities for university students and actively guide them to use IL knowledge to solve practical problems.

Configuration D:~OG*~SI*~TD*TI*LM*~LB. The core conditions in this configuration are TI and LM, and TI is more important than LM in this configuration because LM is a necessary condition. There are few cases that fall into this configuration. As already described above, there are four types of LM: reciprocity, pleasure, prestige and self-actualisation. According to the principles of SET, with university students stimulated by the associated benefits and expected rewards, such students are more willing to help others, enjoy working with team members to complete tasks, gain recognition from others, achieve their LM. Ultimately, they can improve their CE in IL through a series of practices [51]. Therefore, we define these students as motivation satisfaction type.

We believe that the appropriate division of labour under contextual tasks and thus the students’ LM becomes the key to getting such students to improve their CE. On one hand, teachers’ task designs that are too remote or difficult to assess will discourage university students’ motivation to learn; too simple will lead to slackness and contempt. Thus, when teachers set up task situations, they need to pay attention to the degree of differentiation of the tasks, and the difficulty of the tasks should be gradual, so that team members can consolidate the foundation of IL knowledge while fully participating. On the other hand, we focus on the construction of students’ critical and logical thinking [15]. Teachers need to combine theory and practice in the form of team work, apply IL skills to their own disciplines, research projects, entrepreneurial proposals and social practice in order to transform IL knowledge into application.

6. Implications

This study has important theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, based on CLT and SET, this study explores how to improve CE of IL in universities through an fsQCA research method, which ultimately yields four configurations, and we classify students into four types, namely context-driven, class-guidance, meaning-realised, and motivation satisfaction. At the same time, we propose differentiated enhancement strategies for these four types. We embark on an outcome study on the effects of IL development in higher education, which enrich the results of the research area of IL in higher education. The results of the study address the three questions of what factors affect CE, how they affect CE and how to enhance CE. From a configuration perspective, our study uses fsQCA to view the enhancement of CE in ILE in higher education as a complex outcome, arguing that such an outcome does not depend on a single influencing factor but should consider the combined effect of multiple influencing factors, and this new research perspective that contributes to a holistic understanding of the mechanisms at play in enhancing CE.

Practically, this study can provide some guidance for ILE in universities. This study divides university students into four types and proposes differentiated cultivation strategies. In the different strategies, there are differences in the roles and functions played by university libraries, teachers and university students. For university libraries, the main focus is to promote the creation of an information culture and to ensure the hardware and software conditions; teachers focus on improving their own teaching ability, teaching mode and practical guidance to university students; and university students establish a correct learning concept, absorb classroom knowledge and transform it into practical skills. Each of the three parties has its own role to play and complement each other, so that the CE of IL in universities can be maximised. This could also make a contribution to the development of innovative talent in China.

7. Conclusion

IL is indispensable for the cultivation of national innovative talents. Universities and university libraries are important undertakers in cultivating IL among students. There are three key findings in this study. First, the elements involved in CLT and SET can provide some guidance for this study. Second, there are four different causal relationships between TD, OG, LM, SI, TI, LB and CE, and we propose four types of IL cultivation models for students based on the configurations of the four causal outputs. Finally, we find that in the cultivation of university students’ IL, universities, teachers and students are indispensable, and only a strong combination can maximise the benefits. However, there are some shortcomings in this study. For example, the sample size of this study is small and sourced from a university of science and engineering in China, so the resulting measures should be more applicable to a single polytechnic university. In subsequent studies, the group will need to continue to expand the scope of the research to make the findings relatively more generalisable.

Footnotes

Appendix 1

Measurement items and sources.

Variable	Items	Measurement items	Sources
Teaching design	TD1	For the Information Literacy courses, teachers have detailed and thorough pre-course preparation	Breit²⁴ and Shi³²
	TD2	There are enrichment teaching activities in the information literacy courses
	TD3	Teachers pay great attention to information literacy courses
	TD4	The teachers pay great attention to students’ feedback after class
Organisational guarantee	OG1	Universities can provide a good teaching platform for students	He³³
	OG2	Universities can provide a good network infrastructure for students
	OG3	Colleges can provide students with good teaching equipment related to information literacy
	OG4	Universities attach great importance to the development of student information literacy
Learning motivation	LM1	I can show myself through information literacy courses	Wang et al.³¹
	LM2	I can raise my status and profile in the information literacy course tasks
	LM3	I can progress with others in an information literacy courses
	LM4	I find the information literacy courses very interesting
Self-identity	SI1	I am very satisfied with my life	Wang et al.³⁰
	SI2	I think I can be accepted by other people
	SI3	I know myself well
	Si4	I can adjust myself in time and keep learning
Team identity	TI1	I have got on very well with the group members	Wang et al.³⁰
	TI2	I often share ideas with my team members
	TI3	I will help each other and my team members to solve learning tasks
	TI4	I will work very well with the team members
	TI5	The members of the group have all identified with me
Learning benefit	LB1	I can complete my information literacy course tasks on time	Sablina et al.⁴⁰
	LB2	I can take the initiative to learn and present my coursework
	LB3	I have learned a lot of retrieval skills
	LB4	I have given serious thought to the content of the study
	LB5	I have summarised my learning carefully
	LB6	I have completed all the course tasks
Cultivation effect	CE1	The information literacy courses matched my expectations	Huang et al.⁴¹
	CE2	I am willing to take information literacy courses
	CE3	I have learnt a lot of information literacy knowledge and skills
	CE4	I will take the initiative to attend some information literacy activities
	CE5	I will apply my knowledge to practice
	CE6	I will recommend others to take an information literacy course

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

This research is supported by the National Social Science Foundation Youth Program of China (22CTQ010) , National Social Science Foundation General Program of China(21BTQ042) and Jiangsu Provincial Social Science Foundation of China (22TQC002).

ORCID iDs

Meng Wang

Ya Chen

Jing Qian

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ACRL Board. Framework for information literacy for higher education, https://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework (2015, accessed 10 July 2022).

Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. Notice of the Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education on printing and distributing the main points of work in 2022, http://www.moe.gov.cn/s78/A08/tongzhi/202203/t20220310_606097.html (2022, accessed 10 July 2022).

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