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The levels of Self-Perceived and Observed Information Literacy for a sample of in-service teachers and future teachers of Primary and Secondary Education are analysed as a whole and by its components of Searching for, Evaluating, Processing and Communicating Information. To do so, two validated tools are used which enable us to obtain Self-Perceived Information Literacy levels (through a self-assessment questionnaire) and Observed Information Literacy levels (through performance measures) from 442 in-service teachers and future teachers of 7 educational institutions in 4 provinces of Castile and Leon (Spain). The results of the descriptive and inferential analyses show that the Self-Perceived Information Literacy is overestimated compared to the Observed Information Literacy for all groups, especially among future Primary Education teachers, with the in-service Secondary Education teachers showing the least difference between self-perception and performance. The Observed Information Literacy is at its best level among the Secondary Education teachers and lowest level among the future Primary Education teachers. At each educational level the performance of in-service teachers is always higher than the performance of future teachers, indicating the preponderance of experience versus the generational effect. The components of the Observed Information Literacy with the lowest values for all groups are Searching for and Evaluating Information and, therefore, specific training activities are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The multivariate characteristics of the IL-HUMASS scale are studied. This scale is formed by 26 Likert scale items and 4 dimensions and evaluate the information literacy self-perceived level of students. A sample of 402 subjects, all of them Spanish future teachers from secondary education, is obtained. It is implemented a multidimensional scaling technique by ALSCAL based on the distance matrix from the data. The results detected two empirical dimensions, which accounted for 95.9% of the variance. The first dimension is related to the level of familiarity with the content of the item and the second dimension is related to cognitive or instrumental aspect of the item. In the conclusions, two dimensions obtained are connected with the original scale, in relation to the four theoretical dimensions. On the other hand, the conclusions highlight the importance of considering the two dimensions obtained, in addition to the classical dimensions, in the design of assessment scales of the construct information literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]