The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to investigate a few economy students’ perceptions of user education connected to essay work, focusing on aspects of information literacy of importance to the studies and the role of the user education in this context. The study was conducted with a qualitative approach. Five economy students were interviewed regarding their experiences of working with information, their perceptions of user education and its impact on their essay work. The interviews were transcribed and analysed with Bruce’s (1997) relational model of information literacy. The results show that the user education focused mainly on presenting various electronic databases and how to use them effectively. This is consistent with the first two of Bruce’s conceptions of information literacy. The areas in which the students experienced difficulties during the process of seeking and using information were in part corresponding to the user education and the students generally found the education to be helpful to their studies. However, within some areas of difficulty the students received no instruction, neither through the user education nor through the teachers in their subject field. These areas concern strategies for performing critical analysis of sources and enhancing the essays reliability, and are consistent with the third and the fifth conceptions of information literacy, concerning the information process and knowledge construction. To increase the awareness of information literacy as a complex concept and facilitate the students’ work, it should be included in the main education to a greater extent, and not be limited to the library’s courses.