Assessment Strategies for IL

1
Assessment Strategies for IL

• Ralph Catts
• University of New England
• Australia

2
Assessment Options

• At institutional level one can
• Assess competencies
• Infer competencies
• Assess background knowledge
• Self Assess

3
Competencies Assessment

• Validity from observed performance
• Credible for students and academics
• Costly
• Subject to unreliability with large scale data
  collection

4
Assessment by Inference

• Involves inferring from other information such as
  subject grades
• Cheap and easy
• Possibly Reliable
• Unlikely to be valid
• Hence lacks credibility

5
Assessing Background Knowledge

• Pencil and Paper assessment
• Implies competence but can knows about
  does?
• Useful for individual assessment
• Risk of Cheating by individuals

6
Self Report

• Used for Institutional assessment of learning
  outcomes by Ramsden et al
• Used for assessing academic staff performance
• Can be valid and reliable
• Unsuitable for individual assessment
• Measures what people do.

7
The 7 CAUL standards

1. Recognises need for information
2. Access information effectively
3. Evaluates information and sources
4. Stores and manages information
5. Uses information to create ideas
6. Uses information legally ethically
7. Uses information as a lifelong learner

8
Self Reporting Behaviours, leads to identified
standards

• Recognises need for information
• Eg When I start an assignment, I decide how much
  information I need.
• Stores and manages information
• Eg When I research a topic I use tools such as
  endnote to organise the information

9
Australian Information Skills Survey (CAUL and
ANZIIL)

• Content Validity confirmed against CAUL Standards
  (edition 1)
• Construct validity established by SEM
• Criterion validity to be reported
• Reliability determined for one population

10
Plans for 2004

• Further development and validation of Information
  Skills Survey (ISS)
• Investigation of effect of IL policy on curricula
  (qualitative) and outcomes
• Relationship between IL of students and ease of
  grading for teacher
• Transfer of IL skills to work places (nursing and
  education)

11
Post-script - An Invitation

• Third International Conference on Lifelong
  Learning, June 16 -19
• Yeppoon, Central Queensland.
• Attracts business people, academics and
  librarians.
• All papers subjected to genuine peer review