Assessment Methods
The Information Literacy Team offers you the following assessment methods to help gauge student learning. You will need to customize them to fit your needs before teaching a session.
Knowledge test
What can it help you learn?
A short quiz can help you understand what your students have learned as a result of library instruction. A pre/post test measures the learning that students bring to the session, as well as what they learn during the session. A simple quiz at the end of a library instruction session (or several weeks after the session, if you can make arrangements with the course instructor) can show whether students learned what you intended them to learn.
Tips on how to administer the assessment:
You can devise a simple (no more than a few questions) quiz for students at the beginning and/or end of the session (or a few weeks after the session, if the instructor cooperates). You can make it a paper quiz, or you could tell students to open their email and answer the questions in an email message (put the questions up on the screen). The questions should track very closely to your learning outcomes. For example, if one of your outcomes is that students know how to use features like truncation in a particular database, there should be a question asking about it.
Student bibliographies
What can it help you learn?
If the course instructor is willing to share a sample (remember, you only need a small sample) of student bibliographies/work cited lists with you, you can analyze them to see what resources students have used. This works if one of your learning outcomes is that students will use materials from our collections and/or databases, or that students will use a particular database, or that students will use scholarly resources, etc. You would count and categorize the references, depending on what you want to find out.
Tips on how to administer the assessment:
In order to analyze bibliographies, you need to decide what you're looking for. You might need to develop a rubric that allows you to rate the quality of the bibliography, or you might simply be able to count (for example) the number of sources that the student cited that come from the library's catalog or databases.
Concept inventory
What can it help you learn?
A concept inventory can help you understand whether students are learning important concepts that you want to teach during library instruction.
Tips on how to administer the assessment:
Make a checklist of 3-12 important concepts students need to master. Ask students to explain each concept in a sentence or two. If a concept is unfamiliar, they should leave it blank. Count good responses for each concept, then plan future instruction.
Example you can modify:
An article about using concept inventories in microbiology (see page 4 for example of concept list).
One-minute paper and variations
What can it help you learn?
A one minute paper can ask one of these kinds of questions: What is one important thing you learned about library research today? What is one thing you will do differently as a result of this session? What is one question you still have about library research?
You can read and code their responses, and match them to your learning outcomes. You can also display responses in a "word cloud" by using a free tool called Wordle.
Tips on how to administer the assessment:
Students can respond in three ways:
- First, by using an online form you have created beforehand.
- The second way students can respond is by handing out index cards on which they can write their response.
- The third way is to ask students to get into their email at the end of class and write the response in the body of the email (make sure they put something like BGMT ### in the subject line so you can identify them).
Online methods
Student email to you
When teaching in an instruction lab where students have access to computers, it is easy to ask them to open up their email and send you a message that can be (1) the answers to a short quiz (put the questions up on the screen) or (2) a response to a one minute paper or variation. Tell students to put the course number in the subject line so you will be able to identify the responses. If you want to preserve student anonymity, ask students to find your name on the Subject Specialist list and use the email function there.
