Assessing Student Growth in Information Literacy Skills Through 10 Weeks of Steady Watering and Sunshine

Assessment is vital to evaluating student success and the effectiveness of an instructor or curriculum. It helps to demonstrate to stakeholders that a program has value while giving instructors an opportunity to cultivate a garden of course materials to ensure future success of students. Without an evaluation tool, there is little to no ability to tell the story about a program from seedling to harvest.

During a 10-week information literacy course, librarians at the University at Buffalo (UB) employ a 10-question pre and post-test to assess information skills and knowledge of English Language Learning (ELL) students. Using the ACRL Framework for inspiration of course learning objectives, the assessment and the course content have been consistently revised and updated based on the unique needs of both the student population and the undergraduate curriculum.

Using a video recorded in a professional studio in the UB Libraries, two librarians will walk attendees through their process of creating questions based on scaffolded lesson plans and the basic setup and delivery of an assessment instrument. In addition, they will reflect on their own student data collected from their course over the last six years, including during the pandemic when all instruction was fully remote. Viewers will learn about the evolution of the course over time and how assessment drove the librarians to spring forward with much needed course iteration.