One Library’s Approach Presented by Bruce Kocour Carson-Newman College [email protected] http://library.cn.edu/ACA/kocour.html
Jan 02, 2016
One Library’s ApproachPresented by Bruce Kocour
Carson-Newman [email protected]
http://library.cn.edu/ACA/kocour.html
Information Literacy AssessmentWhy bother?
Assessment tips
ACRL Information Literacy Standards
Assessment of freshmen and seniors at C-N
Information Literacy AssessmentWhy Bother?
Because you have to!It really does allow you to identify areas that
need more attention.Led to a complete redesign of our library
instruction program after we assessed some of our seniors.
As our new gen ed was being developed we were able to present convincing evidence that information literacy instruction was needed throughout the curriculum.
Assessment – Pay attention to…Validity
How wellthe assessmentactually measures what it was intendedto measure…
Synonyms -accuracysoundnesstrustworthiness
ReliabilityHow well the
assessmentis able to produceconsistent scores…
Synonyms -dependabilitystability
Assessment = discovering what your students have learnedMake instructions and questions as clear as
possibleDon’t try to trick themWhen using multiple choice questions, don’t offer
A&B, B&D, A&D as answers – those kinds of answers assess critical thinking skills not content knowledge.
Make all possible answers plausibleAvoid giving cluesAvoid giving answers elsewhere in the testDon’t give extra credit for being able to answer a
question about your family or some other non course-related content!
ACRL Information Literacy Standardshttp://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlstandards/standards.pdfAn information literate individual is able to:
Determine the extent of information needed Access the needed information effectively and efficiently* Evaluate information and its sources critically* Incorporate selected information into one’s knowledge
base Use information effectively to accomplish a specific
purpose Understand the economic, legal, and social issues
surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally *
* We librarians concentrate on assessing these at C-N.
ACRL - continued
Examples from C-NFreshmen
Pre and post-test as first and last modules in WebCT “course”
Quizzes at end of each moduleSeniors
Test is in WebCT
Results plugged into “SLOAPs” and used to guide instruction the following year.
Learning Outcomes1. The student understands and can use Boolean
logic to construct search statements .2. The student can identify key concepts to use
in a keyword search.3. The student can conduct an effective subject
heading search. (Senior only assessment)4. The student can use the online catalog
effectively.5. The student can find information in a book
using internal organizers (TOC, index).
Learning Outcomes - Continued6. The student can identify the appropriate
finding aid(s) for the information sought.7. The student can identify the elements of a
bibliographic citation.8. The student can identify purpose and
audience of potential resources (popular vs. scholarly, types of web sites).
9. The student can apply criteria for evaluating both the information and its sources.
10.The student can differentiate between primary and secondary literature. (Senior only assessment)
Learning Outcomes - Continued11.The student understands the meaning of
plagiarism and how to avoid it.12.The student understands the concept of
intellectual property.
Learning Outcomes Evaluation Methods Assessment Results Resulting Improvements
1. The student can construct search statements using appropriate Boolean logic.
1a. Improved scores from pre to post-test for questions pertaining to Boolean searching on EH 101 post-tests
1b. 70% of questions pertaining to Boolean searching on Senior Seminar/Capstone quiz answered correctly
1a.
1b.42%
1a. Additional time will be spent on Boolean searching in fall 2007 classes. The following comments apply to English 101 in general: We are also redesigning the pre and post-tests to make them more parallel to (hopefully) more accurately assess slo’s. We met with the English faculty in August 2007 and asked them to weigh the information literacy tutorials and post-test at a high enough level to ensure students take it seriously.1b. The following comments apply to all senior assessment results: results were disappointing and indicate that material introduced during the freshman year is not often retained. Those seniors who had been in more library instruction sessions generally performed better on the senior quiz. The library is attempting to reach an agreement with all departments offering a major that would ensure their students receive library instruction in a required course early in that major. It was also suggested by some faculty teaching senior seminar courses that the quiz was too difficult. The librarians will redesign the quiz in the fall of 2007 to (hopefully) more accurately assess senior student learning outcomes.
Pretest
Post-test
% Change
65.1 68.1 3
Information Literacy Assessment
SACSNCA No Worries!