The current project examined the impact of knowledge about the credibility of sources on readers' processing of texts. Participants read texts in which information about characters was provided by either a credible or a noncredible source; this information suggested that the character potentially possessed a particular trait. A subsequent text episode offered the opportunity for participants to apply any inferred trait to their understanding of unfolding story events. In Experiment 1, participants' moment-by-moment reading times indicated strong expectations for characters to behave in trait-consistent ways, with little effect of credibility on those expectations. Experiments 2 and 3 provided participants with additional encouragement to attend to credibility during reading, but these experiments also revealed little influence of credibility. In Experiment 4, in addition to being given added encouragement, participants were explicitly asked to evaluate the likelihood of future text events; under these conditions, expectations for story outcomes were influenced by the credibility of information sources. This influence was mediated by the degree to which participants self-reported relying on credibility during the task. These findings have implications for contemporary accounts of text comprehension, persuasion, and individual differences in credibility assessment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

Digital information literacy (DIL)—generally defined as the ability to obtain, understand, evaluate, and use information in a variety of digital technology contexts—is a critically important skill deemed necessary for success in higher education as well as in the global networked economy. To determine whether college graduates possess the requisite knowledge and skills in DIL, higher education institutions must be able to administer and use results from valid assessments of DIL. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of existing definitions of this construct in major frameworks from higher education and the workforce and propose an operational definition of DIL. Next, we provide a review of existing assessments of information literacy and related constructs, including features of the assessments, construct alignment, and psychometric properties (i.e., reliability and validity evidence). Finally, we discuss challenges and considerations surrounding the design, implementation, and use of next‐generation assessments of DIL. We offer this review as a resource for higher education institutions in selecting among existing assessments or in designing their own measures.

Written communication is considered one of the most critical competencies for academic and career success, as evident in surveys of stakeholders from higher education and the workforce. Emphasis on writing skills suggests the need for next‐generation assessments of writing proficiency to inform curricular and instructional improvement. This article presents a comprehensive review of definitions of writing proficiency from key higher education and workforce frameworks; the strengths and weaknesses of existing assessments; and challenges related to designing, implementing, and interpreting such assessments. Consistent with extant frameworks, we propose an operational definition including 4 strands of skills: (a) social and rhetorical knowledge, (b) domain knowledge and conceptual strategies, (c) language use and conventions, and (d) the writing process. Measuring these aspects of writing requires multiple assessment formats (including selected‐response [SR] and constructed‐response [CR] tasks) to balance construct coverage and test reliability. Next‐generation assessments should balance authenticity (e.g., realistic writing tasks) and psychometric quality (e.g., desirable measurement properties), while providing institutions and faculty with actionable data. The review and operational definition presented here should serve as an important resource for institutions that seek to either adopt or design an assessment of students' writing proficiency.

This paper presents a framework intended to link the following assessment development concepts into a systematic framework: evidence‐centered design (ECD), scenario‐based assessment (SBA), and assessment of, for, and as learning. The context within which we develop this framework is the English language arts (ELA) for K‐12 students, though the framework could easily be applied to cover reading, writing, and critical thinking skills from pre‐K through college. Central to the framework is the concept of a key practice, drawn from constructivist learning theory, which emphasizes the purposeful social context within which skills are recruited and organized to carry out complex literacy tasks. We argue that key practices provide a key link between existing CBAL™ ELA learning progressions (defined as part of a student model for literacy skills) and the structure of well‐designed SBAs. This structure enables us to design assessments that model a key practice, supporting the systematic creation of task sequences that can be used to support both instruction and assessment.

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