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Assessment

Information literacy instruction can range from an online course guide to a digital learning object to a teaching partnership in a course. While this allows students to have the opportunity to learn in a variety of situations, it provides a unique challenge for librarians to assess student learning. What impact does information literacy instruction have on student success? How do we know students are learning from our time with them? How can we measure their competency? Below are examples of  library faculty efforts to do this.

Annual Assessment Plans

Each year the ILP will be assessing one aspect of student learning as defined by our learning outcomes. In 2007/2008 our assessment plan revolves around critical thinking as we ask students to list the criteria used to evaluate information. This is based on the Information Literacy Standard:

Standard 3. The information literate student evaluates information and its sources critically and incorporates selected information into his or her knowledge base and value system. Specific outcome to be measured:

--Examines and compares information from various sources in order to evaluate reliability, validity, accuracy, authority, timeliness, and point of view or bias

 20072008 plan and annual assessment report

Student Ratings

As part of a response to the change in the campus student evaluation forms, ILP Librarians have been piloting their own version of standardized yet customizable student rating forms. Librarian-led instruction requires a unique form that recognizes the particular teaching situation the student encounters. The rating forms measures four distinct aspects:

  1. Librarians demonstrated respect/concern for students' needs.
  2. The class facilitated students' learning.
  3. The activities/lecture was appropriate to the assignment/course project.
  4. The students experienced an affective change regarding library research.  

A ‘question bank’ is maintained for librarians to select preferred questions or terminology, while still measuring the four areas of interest. Each librarian enters their own data which is ultimately added to a shared data set. This creates a data set that can be used by the librarian and the program as a whole to evaluate instruction. While still in the preliminary stages of adoption, the data being created is driving decisions about teaching methodology.

Other Assessment Efforts

  • Gathering feedback on how well we assist students at the two service desks, the third floor Research Help Desk and the fourth floor Information Desk, is important to us. Therefore we have developed a survey that is administered during different times of the semester to gather this feedback. For more information click here.
  • Assessing Information Competency Skills of Transfer StudentsThe librarians from MiraCosta, Palomar and CSUSM have developed and administered an information competency skills test to MiraCosta and Palomar College students transferring to CSUSM as juniors to compared to CSUSM students who completed their freshman and sophomore years at CSUSM.
  • Assessing a First Year Experience Information Literacy Instruction Within the General Education Program  This project is a natural outgrowth of the various activities of the Information Literacy Program (ILP) in using the ETS iSkills test.  CSUSM was one of the first campuses to beta-test the instrument with 5 students in July 2004.  In Fall 2006 we used the basic level test to measure student learning in the first year of our integrated General Education information literacy model. For more information on the CSU and iSkills see: http://www.calstate.edu/LS/infocomm.shtml
  • Information Competence as a Student Learning Outcome: A Collaboration with CSUSM's College of Business Administration
    A project of the College of Business Administration whereby in collaboration with the Business librarian, a series of college meetings and workshops were held to discuss information literacy and to incorporate the Standards for Information Literacy Competency into the learning outcomes for our students. The meetings and workshops had as their primary goal to develop an understanding of information literacy and of the Standards, to plan a systematic review of the curriculum with the focus of incorporating the Standards, and to  assess the implementation of the Standards into the curriculum in an appropriate manner.