Investigating the Role of Information Literacy in the Use of Different Teaching Methods among Elementary School Teachers

Considering the importance of teaching styles and approaches in teaching elementary students, the role of information literacy in choosing and using different teaching approaches has been studied in this research.

This research is carried out by survey method. The research population were the elementary school teachers of the sixth grade from the city of Semnan city. Out of 110 teachers of the sixth elementary school grade from Semnan city in the academic year of 2012-2012, 86 teachers were selected by the stratified random sampling method. To collect data, two researcher-made questionnaires were used to measure the teachers' information literacy status and identify their teaching approaches.

According to the results, teachers` points in information literacy (with the mean of 76.1) were more than the average. The interactive style has the largest mean rate among teaching styles. It also showed that the teachers use the direct teaching style less than the average level and use the other styles higher than the average level. Findings of the research hypotheses showed that there is an inverse relationship between direct teaching style and information literacy and a direct relationship between indirect, problem-oriented and interactive teaching styles and information literacy. Teachers with more information literacy use more teaching styles (two, three and four styles).

The results of the research indicated that the teachers with information literacy skills use different approaches in their teaching process. Therefore, having information literacy skills can play a more effective role in choosing more diverse teaching styles and improving them.