Assessment of Information Literacy Instruction

Information Literacy Instruction (ILI) is a topic of increasing importance and interest to the library community and especially to academic librarians. The assessment of ILI is also of increasing importance, as institutions seek to improve the effectiveness of their ILI programs and as they are required to provide evidence of this effectiveness both internally and to external agencies and the public. While many types of assessment methods have been used for ILI, the focus of this research was to analyze three specific methods: (a) pre- and post-test questionnaire, (b) reflective essay, and (c) experiential research task final exam. These data were collected as part of the classroom assessment of university freshmen students taking a required library class in the fall quarter of 2008. Aggregate summary data were analyzed for each of five classes. Students were not identified, and only class averages were reviewed. Summary data from the pre- and post-test questionnaires collected for the fall quarters over a four-year period were also compared. The results of the analysis indicated that the pre-/post-test questionnaire was not a reliable method for assessing student success. The reflective essay grades and the experiential final exam grades each were significantly higher than the post-test questionnaire scores, suggesting that these methods were more valid assessment methods of student learning. The historical questionnaire data did not indicate any consistent trends in student learning over the four-year period. More research on the reflective essay and experiential final exam as ILI assessment methods was suggested.