Crafting Assessment Questions: Creating the Tools to Assess Information Literacy Objectives for Art and Design: A Workshop

Now that information literacy standards for higher education have been created and are commonly incorporated within university curricula, assessing student mastery of the objectives is the next step in creating a measurable information literacy program. In addition to responding to institutional needs for data on student learning, assessment data is a valuable resource for updating instruction programs based on student knowledge and performance. While many librarians have vast amounts of anecdotal knowledge about what students know, being able to gather hard data on what students learn from online and in-person instruction can quantify the strengths and needs of your instruction program, making it easier to report on the library’s role in student learning. Writing effective test questions is the foundation of any assessment endeavor. Assessing complex abilities, such as information literacy, requires a combination of creativity and formal methodology. This workshop will focus on the art and science of crafting test questions that assess student knowledge of specific objectives. Writing useful test questions draws on creativity as well as familiarity with standards. Using ACRL’s Information Competencies for Higher Education and ARLIS’ Information Competencies for Students in Design Disciplines, the workshop leaders will engage participants in identifying which objectives lend themselves to being assessed via multiple-choice formats. The essentials of writing multiple-choice items will be addressed via the Haladyna, Downing, and Rodriguez Revised Taxonomy of Multiple Choice Item Writing Guides. Presented information will include how to select objectives for assessment and elements of effective test questions. Aspects of test construction and administration will also be addressed. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to practice writing questions and review sample questions for reliability and validity

Reading the Representation: Using Assessment to Understand Student Knowledge

Now that competencies for information literacy are widely communicated in higher education, including in Art and Design, assessing student learning of the standards is the next step in fully incorporating information literacy in the discipline. A recent investigation at San Jose State University of students’ ability to analyze citations illustrates that students need practice in identifying types of sources, and that this practice can be effectively delivered through brief active learning activities

An Online Competency Test for Information Literacy: Development, Implementation, and Results

Librarians, faculty, and assessment specialists at James Madison University (JMU) collaborated to develop an online Information-Seeking Skills Test (ISST) to measure competencies relating to information literacy. In this paper we will report on how we developed and implemented the test as a required competency for all first-year students in General Education. We will also report on test results, challenges in implementing a competency test for all freshmen, our training program for faculty, and our remediation program

Overcoming Speech and Library Anxiety

Students at higher education institutions need to learn how to use the library and to give public speaking presentations, and most will experience Speech and or Library Anxiety. We review Library and Speech Anxiety, and a collaboration between librarians and faculty that produced a freshman course Library Demonstration Assignment. We describe its generation, implementation, and refinement and its effectiveness in preparing students to use the library and to practice public speaking with confidence