Information literacy and computer skills in nursing education

¶ … Literacy

The topic of information literacy has become very prominent and entrenched in the United States, and the nursing industry is no exception. The importance of having strong literacy in how to collect and decipher information, including the computer literacy that is often necessary to facilitate this collection, is extremely important in so many facets of life and perhaps the two most poignant and enhanced examples of this are the educational and career sectors of life. The United States has made a seismic shift towards service and knowledge-based work sectors and people that wish to become part of the latter need to have extremely strong information literacy skills. Strong working knowledge of computer internet technology goes hand in hand with information literacy.

Computer, Information and Informatics Literacy

One question posed to the author of this paper is whether or how computer, information and informatics literacy are linked together and related. They are inexorably related, but there are a few distinctions and descriptions that should be delivered on the subject to clarify it. Information literacy is at the highest level of the three and truly encompasses all of the sub-tasks and portions that compromise information literacy as a whole. Computer literacy and informatics literacy are subdivisions of the broader topic of information literacy.

Information literacy is the overall ability to recognize when data is needed and there is an understanding how to properly harvest and use that information to address the need that precipitated the need for the information in the first place. As an example, part of this assignment required the author of this paper to find at least ten resources to cite throughout the text of the paper. The author of this paper had to recognize this requirement, know how to get the resources required and how to properly integrate into the paper. Integration would include proper citations, interrelating the research material and facts with the analysis and clarifications in the paper, and so forth. The skills necessary to accomplish this include a literacy in how to use academic search engines, how to properly give credit to the authors of the research, and how to present all of the above in a coherent and cogent manner.

Informatics literacy and computer literacy may sound like they are the same thing to some people. They are similar in that they both relate to the broader topic of information literacy and they both relate to computer hardware technology, but they are most certainly different. Computer literacy is even different that internet literacy. There are no doubt a lot of people that can bust out a word processing document or Excel spreadsheet in a hurry but are less than adept at navigating the internet. This distinction is no less relevant when comparing computer use to the overall topic of informatics.

Computer literacy is mostly limited to the effective use and harnessing of a computer as an individual device. One could certainly lump in Internet use as much of this is mostly limited to the computer itself but the same cannot be said of informatics. When speaking of informatics, one is talking more about the network, database and other computer infrastructure that goes into running any business or other operation and hospitals are certainly a good example of that. Knowing how to run an individual workstation in a hospital would be an example of computer literacy but knowing how all of the databases, network equipment and other it resources interact and work in relation to each other is informatics literacy. Knowing how to log into a workstation effectively is an example of computer literacy. Knowing how to query a database server when looking for patient records and when and how these records are maintained and updated in the system is an example of informatics literacy.

Obviously, they all feed off one another and one really can't have one without the other three as it relates to being an effective and informed employee, manager or executive. The minutia of informatics is generally not something most people need to know and can be exceedingly complex, but the overall best practices and procedures relative to informatics and how they apply to end-users is indispensable and necessary to know. Knowing how to program a database server is not something the average nurse would ever know or need to know. However, knowing how to properly use the database and having a general understanding of how the system operates and works is an entirely different story.

Educational Attainment of Literacy

The point in which a young student gets to use and learn a computer's functions and operations is usually at a rather young age. However, this is by no means monolithic and can vary a lot even from city to city and state to state in the United States. There are a lot of factors that can influence this. The first is the geographical location. Whether it be because of common lifestyle and cultural components or more a matter of the terrain and information technology infrastructure of an area, the degree to which a population embraces and takes the trouble to teach or learn anything related to computer or information literacy can be driven by a lot of voluntary and involuntary societal and cultural factors.

An example of an involuntary state of affairs would be inner city families and schools who would love to buy and use computers and teach students about them but do not have the monetary resources to purchase such items because purchasing much more essential items like pencils and books is trouble enough. This holds true for both the school itself and the homes in which the students live. This stands in stark contrast with people that live in more affluent or at least middle-class neighborhoods that can take much more advantage of the fact that the prices of computer hardware has dropped significantly since the technology became prevalent in homes starting in the early 1990's. These price drops have aided the ease in which lower-income areas and schools can accumulate this same technology but there is still a massive drop-off in the quality and prevalence of the technology and the aggregate skills and learning of the people involved is very different. An unfortunate component of this dimension is that a lot of the people that miss out are minority students who are already behind the proverbial "eight ball" as it is.

That all being said, kids as young as kindergarten level are being actively introduced to computer technology and this is being used to create and reinforce information literacy skills. This is often mirrored in the home as many families have computers in the home and they actively embrace their kids using and learning this equipment so long as the learning is constructive and free as possible from the underbelly of the Internet. The author of this paper recalls that when he was a student, there might be a computer in a room or there might not be. Even if there was, it was not widely used as a tool for learning. The author of this paper did not use computers in school on any sort of a consistent basis until the author reached high school.

Nowadays, it is quite clear that computer and Internet technology are pervasive in schools as compared to twenty or even just ten years ago. Informatics literacy is something that probably doesn't happen for most people until high school at the earliest, even in the modern day. Many people do not get the necessary informatics skills until they reach college or otherwise engage themselves in learning about the topic after they have concluded high school, whether they attend college or not and/or use college as a means to become literate in informatics issues.

Information Literacy and Nursing

Everything said above can be applied to the nursing field as well as the medical field at large. This includes doctor offices, schools, and hospitals. Anywhere that has a nurse or other medical professional is typically subject to the facets of information literacy. The reason the medical field takes on special significance is that life and death is in play. Information not being available or retrieved in time can literally be the difference between life and death for some people. As an example, if a person is allergic to penicillin and the record that contains this information is not accessed by the person giving out medication and/or the person does not know how to access said information, this can lead to a severe if not fatal allergic reaction that was entirely preventable.

One dimension that is very important, but not solely related to, nursing is the storing and accessing of medical records and other information. In years past, all information had to be kept in hard copy format and stored for future use. Many argue for or against the use of the electronic medical records technology of today but few sane people can argue that hard copies of records and other information can be managed in a way that is superior to digital records, all else equal. Things can certainly go wrong when talking about computers and informatics technology. Indeed, losing the equivalent of reams of medical records is a lot easier to do with a computer than it is with a real set of paper copies, but to say that having informatics and information literacy relative to medical record handling is not important and vital would be specious and foolish.

In addition to the sizable amount of medical terminology and procedures that a nurse must learn about, they must also often learn a ton of information related to computer and informatics literacy relative to their industry. Margin for error and other miscues is exceedingly thin when speaking of the medical field. This makes it all the more important that nurses are up to speed with both medical and health literacy as well as information literacy. Nurses need to know all of the important facets of their job very well. Research sources are thick with examples of this going wrong and this is compounded with the fact that average age of nurses ranges somewhere in the 50's and older American are usually much less likely to have strong computer and informatics literacy and are much less likely to voluntarily embrace any of the above when it's solely their choice.

Literature Review

Research that speaks about information literacy and general as well as information literacy specific to the nursing profession is all over the place in academic journals. Below is a summary of ten sources that the author of this paper found on the topic of information literacy as a general topic as well as information literacy articles and topics that are specific to the nursing and/or medical profession.

The first article talks about staging an effective and timely intervention with students that are clearly below the necessary minimums as it relates to information literacy. The article, which emanated from a Canadian journal, recognizes that having deficient to no relative information literacy skills can have a dire effect on the quality of life of a person up to and including how well both their work and educational lives proceed. The article evaluates the proper way to stage said intervention and what does not work. The article notes the artificial and major factors that work for an against such interventions (Latham & Gross, 2011).

The second article vexes the author of this paper because the question posed in its title is quite odd and perhaps even ridiculous. The article asks whether business writing requires information literacy (Katz, Haras, & Blaszczynski, 2010). Considering that business writing is based on research and trends that have to be found out and evaluated, that question is almost laughable on its face if the author of this paper has anything to say about it. It would be equally obtuse to ask the same question about the medical profession as a whole. As an example, someone like a school nurse probably doesn't need a significant amount of information literacy to do their job but it is not all that hard to figure out situations where such skills would be important.

For example, if a student comes to the doctor's office, it would be very relevant and important to know whether the student was allergic to any major medications, whether they had any preexisting medical conditions such as epilepsy or diabetes, and/or whether they've been to the nurse's office before and for what. If the school is rather small, perhaps a file cabinet would cover these bases but for a school of any size it would be insane. This would necessitate at least a single computer being employed to store and track students as the come and go from the nurse's office so that this information is on hand when a student comes to the office or otherwise has a medical malady when they are on school grounds.

The third article makes talk about reinventing and revolutionizing the way in which information literacy is taught and focused upon given the start of a new century. It speaks of redesigning school curricula based on the way that life and technology have changed over recent decades. Indeed, life in 1990 is very different than what it is now given all of the computer and Internet advances that have been had since then. The article gives several suggestions on how to best harness computer technology and the importance in teaching the same to the students of today, and at all levels of education (McBride, 2011).

The fourth article speaks for the need for a fourth "R" when it comes to the principles held fast by many educators. The traditional three R's, even though only one of them actually starts with R, are reading, writing and arithmetic. The article suggests adding "Real Life" to those R's. This new R. would fall on teaching seven basic literacy skill sets to all students. These literacies are traditional, information, visual, critical, media, tool and digital. The ideas mentioned in this article include a heavy focus on Web 2.0 technology. The interactions and components of this technology are an integral part of what the article's author is suggesting (Schrock, 2012).

The fifth article talks about how information literacy needs to encompass so much more than just computer technology for students to stay ahead of the curve. The motive for this belief of the articles three authors is that there are such disparate and wide-ranging results on standardized tests and other measurement tools. It is quite clear to the article's authors that information literacy teaching is important but that solely pushing computer technology on people is not an all-encompassing solution. The overall learning structure used relative to information literacy needs to be changed so that different people with different life stories, perspectives and backgrounds are all able to learn effectively based on the particulars that surround their unique situation (Higntte, Margavio & Margavio, 2009).

The rest of the articles being covered in this report are all directly related to nursing. The sixth article is a study on the perspectives and words of actual nursing students who are asked about how they perceive their own information literacy. The students in question are third-year nursing students and they are asked a series of questions regarding information literacy and where they think they are in terms of adeptness and savvy. The opinions were quite different from person to person and the results speak to the same point of other articles that the united front of pushing computer technology on the masses does not yield monolithic results (Ozkul & Kaya, 2009).

The seventh article takes on a similar tone as one of the earlier ones in that it wants its focus to sit on improving the information literacy of students, although this article is different in that it focuses specifically on nursing students. As noted throughout this report, the level of gravity and importance that information literacy takes on when speaking about professions like nursing is much different than it is with other professions. At the very least, it matters for different reasons than with other professions. However, all of the business continuity and business survival concerns that exist with non-medical professions would exist with any hospital but then one has the life and death concerns relating to effective informatics management being thrown on top. The implications and difference in degree and severity are quite obvious. Anyway, the article gives a systematic approach and summary as to how best to instill literacy skills with nurses (Edwards & O'Connor, 2011).

The eighth article talks about a certain type of learning medium. It speaks of this medium specific to the education of nursing students. This medium is web-based or web-enhanced learning. It does not speak specifically or only about web-only learning such as is the normal course with many colleges in the United States and around the world. Rather, it focuses on simply enhancing learning using web technology rather than having it as the totality of how the learning is conveyed. It speaks to enhancing a ground-based program with web features such as videos and links to case studies and websites that buttress and reinforce the learning (Creedy et al., 2007).

The ninth article is similar to the eight in that it speaks about information literacy relative to a BSN curriculum, but it looks at the subject at a much broader and higher level. The article speaks to integrating information literacy on a massive scale into the complete BSN program in question. Rather than having it as an ancillary or secondary concern, it is deemed to be a vital and integral part of the overall learning process and the subject matter involved. Indeed, the article says that information literacy should be inescapable and unavoidable part of the process. Basically, if one does not embrace and learn information literacy skills, they should have no chance of completing the program successfully and this is as it should be (Flood, Gasiewicz & Delpier, 2010).

The tenth and final article relates to using instructional technology to enhance the literacy skills of nursing students ("Enhancing RN-to-BSN," 2009). This article is very similar in overall subject matter to the prior two articles but the size and scope of what it discusses is obviously very different. As with several articles mentioned in this literature review section, it suggests methodology to enhance the skills of either students at large regardless of major or nursing students in particular.

Summary of Research

All ten articles were basically good. The one that questioned the need for information literacy relative to a field that clearly needs it took the author of this paper aback, but the content of the article allayed some of those concerns. The author was just incredulous that such a question would be posed, even rhetorically.

Anyhow, all of the resources were very informative and all but one of them was very on point. It is reassuring to the author of this paper that no sound and credible academic source would actively show disdain for the focus on information literacy and how important it really is. Reasonable people can (and do) argue about the best ways to address people falling through the cracks and how best to deliver academic curricula, but research and trends over time should make it quite clear which ways are the best ways but some solutions and answer may, and probably will, remain elusive.

Greatly complicating this entire equation of information literacy are the traits of some groups, including traits related to age, gender and even race/ethnicity, that buck the trends and best practices enumerated by academia. Surely, there are situations where getting too fixated on technology, even in a business setting, is not a good thing. For example, firing somebody via an email or a text message may be harnessing of technology but it is exceedingly cold to do something like that and it goes against the commonly accepted cultural practices of society at large.

However, the other side of that coin is that many people make dangerous if not bigoted/sexist assumptions and statements about why some people trail behind in terms of information literacy and such statements should be roundly condemned and the people behind these statements should be ostracized and disqualified from being taken seriously as researchers. That being said, there are people in academia that are on hair-triggers and react way too viscerally and blindly when they see something they don't like in a journal. People should give the benefit of the doubt before jumping to conclusions and should critically and realistically review the research to see if truly is prescient and well thought-out. Doing otherwise leads to being dismissed as a hack if not a lunatic and it is not solid academic practice to condemn something unless there is specificity in what is being criticized.

Conclusion

In total, it is clear that a three-pronged approach should be in place at any institution of higher learning and these three prongs should be information literacy in general, computer literacy and informatics literacy. High school should lay the foundations of this learning. Informatics is not nearly as important at high school level because many people will do just fine in life without informatics skills but the option should be there for those that need or want to learn about it, even if the learning is on a basic level. Whatever can be reasonably done to prepare a student as early as possible for their future career and college lives should be done. The overall trend of our society embracing technology is unmistakable and will only continue to grow. There will indeed be resistance or even pushback in certain industries and portions of society and other portions still will simply just lag behind despite any intentions that may be present, but whatever can be done to enhance the information literacy skills of anyone who wants or needs to learn should be aided in this regard. People that are ignorant and short-sighted need to be called on it and people that are betraying the research and academic cycle need to also be identified and disregarded as doing otherwise is a disservice to all educational structures and nursing is no exception.