Nursing practice at all levels requires a nurse to use evidence-based nursing to improve the quality of patient care. Registered nurses need information literacy skills to practice evidence-based nursing, therefore, all nursing students need to be information literate upon graduation from nursing programs. There is no empirical research evidence on information literacy skills for students entering nursing programs in four-year colleges. Students seeking to attain a baccalaureate degree through a traditional nursing program, enter with differing demographic and educational factors that may affect their information literacy skills. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to examine information literacy skills of the entering traditional baccalaureate nursing student and to assess the relationship of demographic and educational factors utilizing a validated assessment tool, the Information Literacy Test (Madison Assessment, 2012). The Information Literacy Test (ILT) was administered to 120 students in a traditional baccalaureate nursing program at a major metropolitan university during the first month of their academic program. The students in this sample were a homogenous aggregate of white, young females. Cronbach’s alpha for the Information Literacy Test was minimally acceptable for reliability of the test. One hundred two of the 120 students in this study were identified as proficient in information literacy by achieving a 65% on the ILT with 18 students not being proficient. The ILT raw scores ranged from 31 to 55. The mean score for the ILT in this sample was 43.64. Two of the 120 students were at the Advanced Proficient level. Out of the four Association of Colleges and Research Libraries Competency Standards tested on the ILT, students had the most difficulty with Competency 2 on accessing needed information efficiently and effectively. iv Demographic and educational factors were examined for prediction of information literacy skills in students entering their junior year in a traditional baccalaureate nursing program using Chi Square and regression analysis. The categorical variables of English as their primary language (p < .001), race (p < .001), and years since completing science prerequisites (p = .036) demonstrated a statistically significant relationship with the ILT using Chi Square analysis. A pre-analysis test indicated that the Test of Essential Academic Skills, which is an entrance test for nursing program admission, was positively correlated with the ILT (p < .001). An ANOVA of the TEAS and the bivariate ILT indicated that the means were significantly different (p < .001) between the Proficient and the Not Proficient students. A single regression analysis was significant in predicting a positive relationship with the ILT (p < .001) using the one continuous variable, the TEAS score, with the ILT raw score. A logistic regression analysis was performed with two categorical variables, English as the primary language and years since completing science prerequisites, and one continuous variable, the TEAS score with the bivariate ILT raw score. All three variables were significant predictors of information literacy in the model. Student who did not have English as their primary language were 9 times as likely to be not be proficient on information literacy (p = .010). If a student who had science courses completed 3 or more years prior to entry in the nursing program, the student was 12 times as likely to not be proficient in information literacy (p = .008). For every 5 point increase in the TEAS, the ILT score increased by 4 points indicating that students with higher TEAS scores tend to be more proficient in information literacy (p = .004).

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