Viewpoint: Why ICT Literacy Assessment Is Needed Now
By Dr. Ilene F. Rockman
The California State University, Office of the Chancellor
Today's college students are adept at downloading music, using instant messaging
to chat with friends, sending e-mail, and surfing the web-but do they know how
to effectively find, evaluate, and use information appropriately?
Anecdotal information from faculty and librarians say "no"-that students
just accept what they find on the Internet as credible, authoritative, and reliable-and
that they can download and use information however they please.
That's one of the reasons why several colleges and universities are interested
in assessing students' information and communication technology (ICT) skills-to
see just how information and tech savvy students really are.
The California State University (23 campuses) and several other two and four-year
higher education institutions have partnered with Educational Testing Service
(ETS);www.ets.org to develop
the ICT Literacy Assessment, a new performance-based, web-based, interactive
tool designed to measure students' cognitive skills within a digital environment.
Tasks reflect real-world scenarios, which engage students in demonstrating their
knowledge, skills and abilities to define, access, manage, integrate, evaluate,
create and communicate information.
Tasks cover such topics as:
- comparing and summarizing information from the open web to content found
in subscription databases, and then drawing conclusions from the summary
- downloading and installing a simulated video player
- synthesizing information from instant messages into a word processing document
and
- creating a graph that supports a particular point of view. These tasks simulate
work that students have performed (or will perform) in the classroom or in
the workplace.
Student feedback has been positive. They indicate that they have never taken
a test like this before. They found the test to be challenging, that it required
both thinking and technical skills, enjoyed the real-world storylines, and
felt that the tasks reflected activities they had encountered at school, work
or home.
So, why is the test important to institutions of higher education? It requires
students to demonstrate their skills through critical reading, thinking and
reflection (unlike multiple choice tests); helps institutions plan curriculum
to address ICT literacy gaps; provides evidence for accreditation purposes;
verifies ICT literacy skills that students need to enter the workforce or in
graduate school; and has the potential to certify that graduates have the cognitive
and technical skills needed by employers in this globally connected, multicultural
world.
The California State University views ICT literacy as a foundational skill,
similar to math and writing. Students entering any of the university campuses
would do well to have these skills to be academically successful. That is the
message that faculty have told us in Academic
Literacy: A Statement of Competencies Expected of Students Entering California's
Public Colleges and Universities (2000), produced by the inter-segmental
committee of the Academic Senates of the California Community Colleges, the
California State University, and the University of California
Faculty notes that students' success has as much to do with their ability to
find information as to recall it. In addition, while entering students are familiar
with some technology, few are able to demonstrate the crucial ability to critically
evaluate sources of information.
So, ICT literacy assessment is important because we know that
- Students are entering colleges and universities lacking basic research and
information competence skills (including critical thinking and problem solving)
- Technology is transforming teaching and learning at the same time that we
are seeing a proliferation of information formats and choices
- Assessment studies indicate that there is an over reliance on the web as
an information source by students
- Faculty want to see an improvement in the quality of student work, an increase
in the effectiveness of student research, and students taking more responsibility
for their own learning
- Students want to complete assignments with less difficulty and more satisfaction
- Employers want to hire graduates who are competent, willing to take responsibility,
and able to produce new ideas and directions for the future
The ICT Literacy Assessment (www.ets.org/ictliteracy) can help. It is the right
test-at the right time-for higher education.
Dr. Ilene Rockman was the Manager of the Information Competence Initiative
for the Office of the Chancellor of the California State University system until
she passed away on Nov. 26 after a long fight with cancer. Ilene served on the
Charter Client Committee that worked with ETS to develop and implement its ICT
Literacy Assessment.
