Assessing Information Literacy among Undergraduates: A Discussion of the Literature and the University of California-Berkeley Assessment Experience

Abstract

Although national standards for information literacy have been developed and approved by the Association of College and Research Libraries, little is known about the extent to which undergraduates meet these or earlier sets of standards. Since 1994, the Teaching Library at the University of California-Berkeley has conducted an ongoing Survey of Information Lit eracy Competencies in selected academic departments to measure the "lower-order" information literacy skills of graduating seniors. The most fundamental conclusion that can be drawn from this survey is that stu dents think they know more about accessing information and conducting library research than they are able to demonstrate when put to the test.

What do freshmen really know about research? Assess before you teach

“…This differs from all four studies reviewed for this project which assessed students' perceptions of their abilities and tested them on related skills. In each of the other studies, no significant correlations between student self-assessment of their research skills and their tested skills were found (Geffert & Christensen,1998;Profeta & Kendrick, 2002;O'Hanlon, 2002;Maughan, 2001). While those researchers tended to conclude that students report themselves to be more adept with information literacy skills and concepts than they appear to be when tested, this study concludes that incoming Linfield College students were more likely to report their skills at levels similar to the levels at which they tested.…”

“…She concluded that college personnel "…must not assume that new students arrive with acceptable computing and research skills simply because students tell us that they are competent" (p. 63). In another study by Maughan (2001), more than 600 graduating UC Berkeley seniors were asked to self rate their library knowledge and skills and to complete a skills assessment. Maughan reported that "over half of the respondents (and in some cases as high as … 77% of the respondents) self-assessed their skills as either "Excellent" or "Pretty Good."…”

Health Professions Students’ Lifelong Learning Orientation: Associations with Information Skills and Self Efficacy

“…Their finding that undergraduate students overestimated their test performance and ability led to the conclusion that people overestimated their abilities because they may not be in a position to accurately assess their skills due to a lack of skills in intellectual domains. Maughan (2001) found that graduating seniors had a higher opinion of their ability to access information and to conduct library research than they were able to demonstrate by their test scores. Other researchers confirm the notion that, with regard to assessing their own knowledge and skills, students demonstrated an overconfidence in their abilities (Ehrlinger, Johnson, Banner, Dunning, & Kruger, 2008;Monoi, O'Hanlon, & Diaz, 2005;Ren, 2000).…”

Beyond the Library: Using Multiple, Mixed Measures Simultaneously in a College-Wide Assessment of Information Literacy

“…Among those phases and subsequent efforts at CSU, the deployment of quantitative and qualitative measures are described, as well as the use of direct and indirect measures, involving many constituencies across multiple institutions in the assessment of information literacy skills. 13 Charles outlined the process used at Berkeley College to create an information literacy curriculum map and mentioned a number of assessment tools and objects used and gathered throughout a student's information literacy curriculum, namely "rubrics (including discussion board rubrics), research journals, pre and post-tests, concept maps, website evaluation scorecards, audience response systems, peer-assessment, and bibliographies," which assisted librarians "in measuring IL competencies as skills or enduring traits, such as lifelong learning skills. "…”