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During the first week of the Fall 2003 term, the English 111 and 112 faculty administered an Information Literacy Pretest to first-year students. This was the fourth year for the pretest. In addition, a brief Information Literacy test for IS 201 students was given to measure the progress of Information Literacy for second year students. This was the third year for the IS 201 test. It was also administered the first week of the Fall 2003 term.

 The purposes of the tests were to generate objective data regarding what Information Literacy skills the students brought to Wartburg and what had been retained in the second year. Information Literacy librarians Randall Schroeder and Karen Lehmann designed the tests along with College Librarian Jill Gremmels. Professors Judy Griffith and Fred Ribich also provided assistance.

The EN 111 and 112 sections returned 294 tests (97 of 106 EN 111 students and 197 of 242 EN 112 students) which were counted by the optical scanner. The results compare to 522 traditional first-year students enrolled at Wartburg for the 2003 Fall Term (56.3 percent) and 348 total enrollment in all 111 and 112 sections (84.5 percent).

For IS 201, 187 tests were scanned from 197 enrolled students (a return rate of 94.9 percent), the best return rate in the history of the test.

First-Year Students

A large gap in correct answers has developed between the EN111 and EN 112 students.

• 17 of 26 items had a gap of 10 percent or more in 2003.
• 6 items had a gap of 20 percent or more.
• This compares to 2002 when only 7 of 22 items had a gap of 10 percent or more.

The demographic differences between 111 and 112 students in computer availability at home have largely disappeared. A gap of six percent in 2001 narrowed to only 2 percent more EN 112 students having computers at home versus EN 111 in 2002. In 2003, the gap is stable at 2.6 percent. For those who have had a computer at home for five years or more, there was a large jump for EN112 students. EN111 stayed about the same. If there is a gap, it is long term experience with computers.

There is a gap between EN111 and EN112 students in high school preparation. Only 66 percent of EN111 students claim that they have written a bibliography using a standard style, compared to 78.7 percent of EN112 students. 64 percent of EN111 students had written 1-6 high school papers that required footnotes and/or endnotes, compared to 70 percent of EN112 students. Simply writing one high school paper that required research was virtually the same (96 and 97 percent).

The best score was 25 of 26 items, attained by one student. The worst score was 6. The mean for EN111 students was 13.21 and the EN112 mean was 16.39. The overall mean score was 15.34.

Only 33 percent of all first-year students could recognize the title of a scholarly journal. Questions that required selection of information sources, including books or databases, generated the lowest scores. The ability to define or recognize plagiarism dropped below 50 percent for the first time.

These results would suggest that the ability to create a search strategy and select the most appropriate sources for academic work is a skill that is not present in half of our incoming students.

Second-Year Students

It was gratifying to find that there was a gain of 15 to 20 percent on similar questions. The gain, for example, in identifying an appropriate database for a research question went from 33 percent to 49 percent in the second year. Clearly there is still room for improvement.

The poorest scores, for the second year in a row, came in relationship to finding Biblical Commentaries. Being able to find and identify commentaries is an integral part of the class RE101: Literature of the Old and New Testament. Only 11.8 percent knew where to find a commentary in the Vogel Library compared to 9 percent in 2002 and 21.4 percent knew how to search for commentaries in theological journals, down from 32.5 percent in 2002. It should be noted that only 65.3 percent of second-year students had taken RE101 by the time the IS201 Information Literacy test was administered, but the percentages should still be better.

Test design

The problem of question discrimination is resolving itself as the authors have fine-tuned the test over four years. Discrimination in this case is a statistical means to determine if there is a pattern to those who did and did not do well on a particular item. Only two items on the EN111/112 had poor discrimination. One additional item is marginal. The IS201 test, which is only in its third year, had three items with poor discrimination.

For those interested in seeing the complete results of the test, contact Randall Schroeder or Karen Lehmann at the Vogel Library.