Exploring the Joint Cultivation Mechanism of College Students’ Information Literacy and Innovation Ability in the Digital Era
Pubblicato online: 17 mar 2025
Ricevuto: 15 nov 2024
Accettato: 20 feb 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/amns-2025-0293
Parole chiave
© 2025 Yi Huang, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Current college students are in the era of rapid development of information technology. In addition to learning traditional courses, they also need to have good information literacy in order to enhance the ability to efficiently and quickly solve the problems encountered and learn to use the network platform to explore and absorb useful information, eliminate the garbage in the mass of information and keenly find the innovative points [1-4]. Having good information literacy is a kind of ability and literacy which is the basic quality that everyone should have in the information society, and it is also the cornerstone of cultivating innovative talents in colleges and universities. The information age has higher and higher requirements for talent, and the Outline of the National Medium- and Long-Term Talent Development Plan clearly puts forward the main task of talent team construction, which is to emphasize the cultivation and achievement of innovative scientific and technological talents [5-7]. Strengthen the capacity building of human resources, innovate the mode of talent cultivation, focus on ideological and moral construction, highlight the cultivation of innovative spirit and innovative ability, and highlight the cultivation of students’ scientific spirit, creative thinking, and innovative ability. Cultivation of innovative talents is the core issue of higher education, and cultivation of innovative talents is the necessary way to realize an innovative country [8-11]. The establishment of an innovative talent cultivation system cannot be separated from the support of information literacy, and colleges and universities should embed information literacy education into the innovative talent cultivation model so that the two are organically unified to provide motivational support for the cultivation of innovative talents, and ultimately to complete the innovative talent cultivation goals of colleges and universities [12-15].
This paper establishes a joint cultivation system of information literacy and innovation ability from the aspects of talent cultivation, professional education, and so on. It designs a more efficient and scientific joint talent cultivation program and curriculum system. It summarizes the teaching design principles of joint cultivation of college students’ information literacy and innovation ability and analyzes the relevant teaching process under the guidance of a theoretical foundation. Test the effectiveness of the teaching of cultivating information literacy and innovation ability in this study by comparing the levels of information literacy and innovation ability of experimental and control classes before and after joint cultivation. Setting up a questionnaire survey on the information literacy and innovation ability of students after joint cultivation and analyzing and exploring the results of the questionnaire in depth.
Cultivation of Information Literacy among College Students
The level of information literacy of the college student population is related to whether the goal of building China’s information society can finally be successfully realized.
Literature [16] emphasizes the importance of cultivating highly digitally literate talents to comprehensively promote the digital China strategy and constructs a reasonable framework for cultivating digitally literate talents in three dimensions: comprehensively improving basic digital literacy, collaboratively cultivating digital economic talents at all levels, and cultivating innovative thinking, in order to improve the comprehensive level of digital literacy among Chinese youth. Literature [17] highlights the importance of the cultivation of college students’ digital literacy in the survival and development of the digital society, the enhancement of the digital literacy of the whole population, and the realization of the goals of the strategic construction of digital China, and puts forward a path for the cultivation of college students’ digital literacy consisting of the subjective dimension, the community and division of labor dimension, the instrumental dimension and the rule dimension. Literature [18] points out that the cultivation of highly digitally literate talents can help the development of digital technology and the digital economy and synthesizes the current situation of college students’ digital literacy cultivation, the conditions of higher education, and the characteristics of the times and puts forward the paths and suggestions for the cultivation of college students’ digital literacy, in order to promote the overall enhancement of Chinese citizens’ digital literacy.
Cultivation of Innovative Ability of College Students
Cultivating high-quality talents with specialized knowledge, critical thinking, and innovative ability is the original intention and mission of university education.
Literature [19] puts forward a theoretical framework to solve the problem of insufficient cultivation of innovation ability and takes the actual teaching of the Introduction to Big Data course as an example to verify the feasibility and validity of the established theoretical framework, which can be well adapted to the requirements of the economic development in the new period, and provide theoretical and practical references to the cultivation of innovation ability of MBA students. Literature [20] points out that the traditional cultivation mode of Chinese college students’ innovation ability is characterized by the problems of weak innovation consciousness, weak innovation knowledge, rigid innovation thinking, and lack of innovation skills, and mentions the positive impacts of the college system reform, the establishment of interactive learning and living community of teachers and students, the implementation of general education and the mentorship system on the improvement of college students’ innovation ability. Literature [21] emphasizes the importance of having strong digital innovation skills for students’ future employment and puts forward suggestions to strengthen the cultivation of Chinese college students’ digital innovation ability by establishing a joint cultivation ecosystem, broadening the channels of resource integration, strengthening the dynamic interdisciplinary system, and reforming the flexible teaching and assessment methods, which will help college students’ digital innovation ability to keep up with the demand of the labor market.
The relationship between college students’ information literacy and innovation ability
Good information literacy is equal to the catalyst of innovation, and the two complement each other to accelerate the process of social informatization. Based on empirical data, literature [22] analyzed the supportive role of data literacy on the cultivation of graduate students’ innovation ability from four dimensions: data attitude, data awareness, data knowledge, and data skills, and the results showed that among the four dimensions, data awareness has the highest supportive role on the cultivation of innovation ability. Literature [23] proposed a gamified problem-based learning approach. It examined whether the proposed approach could improve the potential of undergraduate students’ digital literacy (DL) skills and innovative self-concept through a longitudinal quasi-experimental mixed-methods approach. The experimental results affirmed the effectiveness of the learning approach, and the potential of undergraduate students’ DL skills and innovative self-concept increased after the intervention experiments, and there was also a significant low-to-moderate association. Literature [24] examined the influence mechanism between graduate students’ information literacy, online platforms, online knowledge-sharing process, and their innovative performance through the 3P learning model based on Biggs, and the results of the study showed that information literacy plays a positive and active role in graduate students’ innovative performance, and therefore proposed to cultivate graduate students’ digital skills to promote their innovative ability.
Cultivating innovative talents has become a kind of strategy of the country, and the cultivation of talents in the digital era should establish a talent cultivation system that adapts to the development of social economy and science and technology, and information literacy is very important to the cultivation of innovative talents. According to the characteristics and process of information literacy education, by combining information literacy education with innovative talents and combining the characteristics of talent cultivation, we have constructed a system for cultivating college students’ innovative abilities based on information literacy cultivation. The joint cultivation system of information literacy and innovation ability is shown in Figure 1. The design of this cultivation system is based on the three stages of general education, professional education, and comprehensive education of undergraduate cultivation in the current talent cultivation program, and it is oriented to the three elements of college students’ innovative ability: innovative consciousness, innovative thinking, and innovative skills, and it constructs the joint cultivation system of college students’ information literacy and innovative ability.
Information literacy and innovation ability combine
In the first stage, the improvement of information literacy of general knowledge is taken as the lead, and it is combined with general education to cultivate innovative consciousness. Through reforming the curriculum system, building the information environment, strengthening the comprehensive information literacy education of college students, optimizing the structure of the curriculum system, and offering theoretical and practical courses related to information literacy education, we cultivate the students’ awareness and ability of information acquisition and promote the formation and generation of their innovative consciousness.
In the second stage, to improve the information literacy of specialties as a lead, combine with professional education, and cultivate innovative thinking. Reflecting the characteristics of different majors, combining the cultivation of information literacy with the cultivation of professional talents on the basis of discipline education, cultivating the ability of information utilization and communication, and promoting the formation of innovative thinking through the opening of thematic lectures, and with the centralized practical teaching sessions of each major, such as experiments, teaching internships, and course design.
In the third stage, the improvement of information literacy for application and innovation is led, combined with comprehensive education to cultivate innovative skills. Students are allowed to carry out application training for information reorganization and creativity cultivation in participating in college students’ scientific research training programs and disciplinary competitions, creating college students’ learning platforms, information platforms, and practice platforms, pushing forward the change of education informatization, building a new mechanism of talent cultivation mode with collaborative innovation both inside and outside the university, and promoting the formation of innovative skills.
(1) The curriculum is the core content of talent cultivation, and the objectives of the curriculum should fully reflect the information literacy, independent inquiry ability, and innovation ability advocated by the information society. When the university formulated the talent cultivation program, it made a coordinated arrangement for the courses related to information literacy education and constructed a multi-level and stage-by-stage curriculum system for information literacy education according to the characteristics of each discipline and specialty, and in conjunction with the standard of information literacy for college students, the principles of curriculum setting and the goals and requirements of the information society for professional talent cultivation. (2) Promote the construction and application of featured resources by creating a digital learning environment and resources. (3) Increase the opening and sharing of laboratories and build an informationized practice platform. Construct an informatization management platform for the experimental teaching platform to realize the opening of laboratories and the sharing of large instruments and equipment. The platform is knowledge-sharing, consisting of four sub-databases, namely, the material library, learning library, test library, and exchange library. The data in the database are stored in the “smallest” unit, which is convenient for free extraction and flexible arrangement. The material library includes teaching objectives (grade teaching objectives, unit teaching objectives, lesson teaching objectives), curriculum plan (curriculum grouping according to the type of learners), curriculum program (specific program for cultivating talents according to the cultivation objectives and cultivation specifications of different majors at different levels), teaching activities (designed according to the purposes of education, practice, innovation, etc.), teaching materials (books, PPT, audio, micro-video and other teaching processes), learning library, test library and communication library, audio, micro-video, etc.), pictures, animations, audio, video, text, etc. that are actually used in the teaching process.
The principle of student subjectivity
Cultivating students’ information literacy and innovation ability should be student-centered and teacher-led, playing the main role of students in teaching, following the principle of student subjectivity, and stimulating students’ subjective consciousness. As a teacher, when carrying out teaching design, it is necessary to take students as the main focus, give the classroom to the students, and not use the duck-filling teaching method but let the students explore knowledge independently and work in groups to complete the knowledge tasks and so on. Teachers should organize students to carry out independent learning activities, cultivate students’ subjective awareness, and play the subjective initiative of students so that students become the main body of the classroom, in the classroom to guide students to carry out activities to explore.
Guiding principle
The guiding principle means that teachers guide students to think independently, let them solve problems by themselves, and develop their problem-solving ability and logical thinking abilities. To cultivate students’ information literacy and creativity, teachers must have a certain degree of patience, guide students to explore independently, take the initiative to analyze and solve problems, carry out collaborative learning in small groups, guide students to communicate with each other, share their opinions, stimulate the desire for knowledge, and improve the efficiency of learning.
The teaching process is shown in Figure 2. Determining the theme is the first part of the teaching process and the most crucial part, because every teaching link that follows is centered on this theme. In the stage of determining the theme, teachers should choose the content suitable for adopting theme-based teaching, which is suitable for teaching content with strong operability and openness, and only by choosing the appropriate teaching content can the theme-based teaching be better realized. After determining the theme content, analyze the learners’ knowledge level and cognitive characteristics to provide a reference for determining the teaching objectives. Analyze the teaching content, master the important and difficult points of the lesson, and establish teaching objectives. Teaching objectives play a very important role in the teaching process. Teaching activities are centered on the teaching objectives and are oriented to the teaching objectives, and the teaching theme is determined through the specific analysis of the learners and the teaching content. The theme is the center of teaching, and the theme can be the theme of a single task, or it can be the big theme of a unit of inquiry, and the big theme is divided into several thematic small tasks for inquiry activities. When developing teaching themes, the theme should be close to students’ lives, up-to-date, and student-centered. Cultivate students’ thinking ability, cooperation, communication ability, and innovation abilities in the theme teaching activities, and cultivate students’ information literacy and innovation abilities.
The teaching process of joint culture
Design of thematic teaching activities program this link is for the next part of the theme of the activities to lay the foundation. The teacher has been identified according to the theme, carefully studied the teaching content and related teaching materials, and designed teaching activities in the process of the theme of the task. The theme can be broken down into several small thematic tasks. These thematic tasks in addition to the knowledge and skills that students need to master, there is also some expansions of the content in order to develop students’ information literacy and innovation. For the thematic tasks, students can be asked to demonstrate the operation after they have completed the task to understand the student’s learning situation. If the students do not understand very well, the teacher needs to explain to help the students understand the knowledge. The entire teaching process centers around the theme. Each theme task should be practical and feasible, and finally, a theme teaching activities program. The program can be designed from these aspects: what the teacher has to do in the process of teaching practice, what the students have to do, and so on.
Thematic activities are the most important part of theme-based teaching, thematic teaching activities in the multimedia classroom. Thematic activities are mainly divided into the creation of a situation, the introduction of the theme, the explanation of new knowledge, the layout of the theme of the task, the students clarifying the theme of the task, independent learning, and collaborative learning in small groups in several parts. Teachers should create a situation, introduce the theme, explain the new knowledge on the basis of student’s understanding of the new knowledge, issue the corresponding theme task, and students clear theme task requirements, with the help of teachers and classmates, to complete the corresponding tasks. As the knowledge level and behavior of each student is different, students can complete the work according to their ideas, and after completion, they can communicate with their classmates and then modify and improve their work where it is insufficient.
Students complete the work after the organization of students to display their work. Students can first be displayed in the group. The group selected a representative work displayed in the class. In group collaboration to complete a work, you can send a representative to the podium to show the group how to evaluate each other, complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and listen to the suggestions of others to improve the shortcomings of the work. Teacher evaluation: after the completion of the group display, the teacher, according to the students’ work and the display of the situation for review and guidance so that students understand their shortcomings and correct them.
Teachers summarize what they have learned, emphasize the key contents, help students consolidate what they have learned, reflect on the shortcomings of classroom teaching, and revise and improve the lesson plan. Students fill in the classroom learning effect form to understand their mastery of the subject matter of the lesson and reflect on themselves. After class, they enter the online learning space to appreciate the excellent work, communicate with each other, and discuss and solve problems together.
In this study, two classes of students in University X were selected as research subjects. Pre-tests were conducted for students in University X before teaching practice. Two classes with similar levels of information literacy and innovation ability were selected as the experimental class and the control class, respectively. The control class was taught using the conventional teaching design, and the experimental class was taught using the joint cultivation model of information literacy and innovation ability constructed in this study. At the end of the teaching practice, data analysis of the pre-and post-measurement scales of the experimental and control classes was carried out to analyze the improvement of literacy in the experimental and control classes before and after the experiment and whether the digital learning and innovation ability of the experimental class was improved compared with that of the control class, and to summarize the reasons for the improvement.
The results of the information literacy and creativity level survey scales were collected from the students in both the experimental and control classes after the teaching was completed to end the teaching practice. The number of post-tests in the experimental class was 50, and the number of post-tests in the control class was 50, both of which were the same as the number of pre-tests, and the scales were all recovered. The data were analyzed using SPSS 26.0. After the teaching practice, the information literacy and innovation abilities of the students in the experimental and control classes were tested. The data were subjected to an independent samples t-test. The results are shown in Fig. 3.A~K: digital tool literacy, access to digital information literacy, processing digital information literacy, expression of digital information literacy, digital information immunity literacy, and digital information innovation ability.M: information literacy and innovation ability.
The independent sample t-test was conducted after the experiment
The p-value of both classes in using digital tool literacy, acquiring digital information literacy, processing digital information literacy, expressing digital information literacy, digital information immunity literacy, digital information innovation ability, and information literacy and innovation ability is 0.001, which proves that the level of information literacy and innovation ability of the experimental class and the control class after the teaching practice of the joint cultivation of information literacy and innovation ability has a significant difference for the next analysis.
The results of paired-sample t-tests before and after teaching are shown in Table 1, and the analysis of the experimental class’s use of digital tool literacy, acquisition of digital information literacy, processing of digital information literacy, expression of digital information literacy, immunity to digital information literacy, digital information innovation ability, and information literacy and innovation ability shows that the p-value of the experimental class and the control class is 0.001 for all dimensions, which indicates that there is a significant difference. Moreover, the differences between the two classes are all positive, proving that the experimental class under the experimental intervention is better than the control class.
The experiment was tested in pairs with the comparison class
| Dimension | Mean | Standard deviation | t | P |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Use digital tools | 0.984 | 0.635 | 3.867 | 0.001*** |
| Get digital information literacy | 0.933 | 0.722 | 3.452 | 0.001*** |
| Processing digital information literacy | 0.735 | 0.863 | 5.386 | 0.001*** |
| Express digital information literacy | 1.024 | 0.847 | 3.626 | 0.001*** |
| Digital information immunity | 0.834 | 0.869 | 6.201 | 0.001*** |
| Digital information innovation literacy | 1.057 | 0.873 | 4.322 | 0.001*** |
| Information literacy and innovation ability | 5.843 | 5.078 | 9.856 | 0.001*** |
In the six dimensions of information literacy and innovation ability to express digital information literacy after teaching practice is 1.024 higher than the mean value before teaching practice, expressing that the improvement of digital information literacy is related to the fact that there are a lot of group presentations and individual presentations in teaching activities. Digital information creativity increased by 1.057 after the teaching practice compared to the mean before the teaching practice, and its increase was related to the teaching of not sticking to a certain form of presenting digital works. In the area of using digital information literacy, there was an increase of 0.984 after the teaching practice compared to the mean before the teaching practice, and the students’ literacy in choosing appropriate digital information for creation increased. There was an increase of 0.933 in access to digital information literacy after the teaching practice compared to the mean before the teaching practice, which was related to the fact that the teachers gave the students sufficient opportunities to choose their favorite learning resources before the class. The reason for the little improvement in digital information immunity literacy is that there are few teaching activities to cultivate digital information immunity in teaching, mostly relying on students’ independent cultivation in addition to the teacher’s education: in terms of handling digital information literacy, the content of this semester’s study is the Excel instrumental software, which is similar to the operation of the student’s learning of Word in Grade 5, and the students have a certain operational foundation and are interested in the photo There is also some improvement in handling digital information literacy, so the improvement in handling digital information literacy is not very obvious.
After the joint cultivation teaching practice, compared with the control class, the information literacy and innovation ability of students in the experimental class improved significantly.
The 100 students after the intervention of joint cultivation of information literacy and innovation ability in University X were selected as the research subjects, and the questionnaires were distributed in the form of both questionnaire star and paper questionnaires.
The questionnaire about the level of students’ information literacy and innovation ability was set up using a five-level evaluation scale, with scores ranging from very compliant to very non-compliant, and decreasing from 5 to 1. Q1 “I can use informatization equipment and tools to quickly find the information I need”, the results of the survey are shown in Table 2. 25% of the students think that they can use information technology equipment and tools to find the information I need quickly. 41% of the students think that they can use information technology equipment and tools to find the information I need quickly. 21.0% of the students think that they can basically use information technology equipment and tools to find the information I need quickly. 13% of the students think that they can not use information technology equipment and tools to find the information I need quickly. I can find the information I need quickly using information technology devices and tools.
Digital devices and tools to find information
| Number | Percentage | Mean | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Very fit | 25 | 25.00% | 3.76 |
| Match with | 41 | 41.00% | |
| General | 21 | 21.0% | |
| Discrepancy | 8 | 8.0% | |
| Very inconsistent | 5 | 5.0% | |
| Total | 100 | 100% |
Q2: “I usually categorize and manage the information I search for.” The results of the survey are shown in Table 3. 28.0% of the students think that they categorize the information they search for very often, 41.0% think that they categorize the information they search for more often, 17.0% think that they categorize the information they search for sometimes, and 14.0% think that they do not categorize the information they search for.
Digital Information Management Capability
| Number | Percentage | Mean | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Very fit | 28 | 28.0% | 3.80 |
| Match with | 41 | 41.0% | |
| General | 17 | 17.0% | |
| Discrepancy | 7 | 7.0% | |
| Very inconsistent | 7 | 7.0% | |
| Total | 100 | 100% |
Q3: “I can use digital devices and tools to complete simple tasks in learning and life to form personalized works.” the results of the survey are shown in Table 4. 29.0% of the students think that they can use digital devices and tools to complete simple tasks in learning and life and form personalized works. 40.0% of the students think that they can use digital devices and tools to complete simple tasks in learning and life and form personalized works. 17.0% of the students think that they can basically use digital devices and tools to complete simple tasks in learning and life and form personalized works. 14.0% of the students think that they cannot use digital devices and tools to complete simple tasks in learning and life and form personalized works. 14.0% of students do not think they can use digital devices and tools to perform simple tasks in learning and life to create personalized works.
Creative ability of task-oriented personalized works
| Number | Percentage | Mean | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Very fit | 29 | 29.0% | 3.85 |
| Match with | 40 | 40.0% | |
| General | 17 | 17.0% | |
| Discrepancy | 7 | 7.0% | |
| Very inconsistent | 7 | 7.0% | |
| Total | 100 | 100% |
Q4: “In the IT classroom, I can evaluate and select appropriate resources and tools to carry out learning according to the corresponding learning tasks.” the results of the survey are shown in Table 5. 29.00% of the students think that they can completely evaluate and select appropriate resources and tools to carry out learning according to the corresponding learning tasks. 41.00% of the 41.00% of the students think that they can assess and select appropriate resources and tools for learning according to the learning tasks. 16.0% of the students think that they can basically assess and select appropriate resources and tools for learning according to the learning tasks. 14.0% of the students think that they can’t assess and select appropriate resources and tools for learning according to the learning tasks.
Digital resource and tool selection ability
| Number | Percentage | Mean | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Very fit | 29 | 29.0% | 3.82 |
| Match with | 41 | 41.0% | |
| General | 16 | 16.0% | |
| Discrepancy | 8 | 8.0% | |
| Very inconsistent | 6 | 6.0% | |
| Total | 100 | 100% |
Q5: “I can creatively solve real-world problems and develop personalized work.” the results of the survey are shown in Table 6. 22.0% of the students think that they can completely solve problems creatively and form personalized works. 39.0% of the students think that they can solve practical problems creatively and form personalized works. 24% of the students think that they can basically solve practical problems creatively and form personalized works. 15.0% of students felt that they were not yet able to creatively solve real-world problems and develop personalized work.
Creative ability of problem-oriented personalized works
| Number | Percentage | Mean | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Very fit | 22 | 22.0% | 3.64 |
| Match with | 39 | 39.0% | |
| General | 24 | 24.0% | |
| Discrepancy | 8 | 8.0% | |
| Very inconsistent | 7 | 7% | |
| Total | 100 | 100% |
This paper establishes the joint cultivation system and teaching process of college students’ information literacy and innovation ability by investigating and analyzing the relevant data and carries out the teaching practice. Comparative analysis of information literacy and innovation ability of college students before and after joint cultivation teaching shows that.
There is a significant difference in the level of information literacy and innovation ability between the experimental class and the control class after the joint cultivation teaching practice (P=0.001). Among the six dimensions of information literacy and innovation ability, the improvement of digital information innovation ability is the largest.
The analysis of the questionnaire survey shows that more than half of the students think they can creatively solve practical problems and form personalized works. Therefore, the joint cultivation mechanism proposed in this paper is comprehensive and strengthens the linkage between the cultivation of information literacy and innovation ability.