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During the first week of the Fall 2000 term, the English 111 and 112 faculty
administered an Information Literacy Pretest to first-year students. This
included all EN 111 and 112 sections, but was limited to students who had
just started their first term at Wartburg College.

The purpose of this pretest was to generate objective data regarding what
Information Literacy skills the students brought to Wartburg. It also
included a small demographic study to see how much exposure to technology
the faculty can expect from the first-year class of 2000-01. Information
Literacy Librarians Randall Schroeder and Karen Lehmann designed the test along with
College Librarian Jill Gremmels. Judy Griffith and Fred Ribich also provided
assistance.

The sections returned 270 tests (105 of 107 EN 111 students, 165 of 224 EN
112 students) counted by the optical scanner. There was no review for
dimpled chads. The results compare to 491 first-year students who started this
September at Wartburg (55 percent) and 331 total enrollment in all EN
111 and 112 sections (81.6 percent). This is a statistically significant sample.

Several items stood out from the test results. The most common answer
regarding where students started their research was the Internet (22
percent). The most common answer for the last place students use for
research is a scholarly source (35 percent). Clearly, if using scholarly material for
research is important to faculty, the case has not been made before students
enroll at Wartburg. There were statistically significant differences between
EN 111 and EN 112 students in items regarding source selection,
identification of scholarly journals, criteria for material selection, and
the Wartburg Computing Policy. There were also strong differences between
the two classes on two items regarding ethics. EN 112 students had difficulty
recognizing a copyright violation, while EN 111 students had difficulty with
the definition of plagiarism.

Fewer than 20 percent of all the students could identify key words to
look up information in an electronic database. In addition, less than 10 percent
could identify the appropriate database for a research problem. While this
does not surprise the librarians, the questions, however, did not have good
discrimination, so it is difficult to tell if the problem is with the
knowledge base or the question. We will address this as we refine the
pretest in future.

Still, 67 percent of all of the students could not establish criteria to
evaluate the scholarship of a given book. Faculty cannot assume students
know how to seek and evaluate quality information. Since this is an important
skill, Information Literacy skills need to be addressed early in the
Wartburg experience.

Demographically, 93.3 percent said they had access to a computer at home,
and 66.1 percent have had access for four or more years. In addition, 68.4
percent of the students claimed to spend three or more hours per week on the
computer at home. According to the latest Nielsen/NetRatings (12/19/00) 56
percent of Americans have access at home.

It seems that Wartburg students have had great exposure to computers and the
Internet before they arrive on campus. How they use those tools is a
question the college can address. For those interested in seeing the complete results
of the test, contact Randall Schroeder or Karen Lehmann at the Vogel
Library.