Assessing Engineering Students’ Information Literacy Skills: An Alpha Version of a Multiple-Choice Instrument

Abstract

Information literacy is crucial component of developing life-long learning skills. However, few standard and easily gradable assessment tools exist to assess the information literacy competencies of learners. In this paper, we discuss the development of a multiple choice instrument designed to measure these competencies in an efficient and expedient manner, and we present results of data collected from 366 first-year engineering students. The instrument requires students to first read a technical memo and, based on the memo"s arguments, answer eight multiple choice and two open-ended response questions. The mean score on the multiple choice portion was only 3.46 out of 8. A qualitative analysis of the open-ended responses provided more insights into students" abilities to identify and resolve conflicts between information sources, evaluate the reliability and relevancy of information sources, and use reliable information sources.