Educational Testing Service Expands Efforts to Measure Computer-and-Information Literacy

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CHE: Educational Testing Service Expands Efforts to
Measure Computer-and-Information Literacy
News bulletin from the Chronicle of Higher Education, 5.9.20
http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/09/2005092002t.htm

The Educational Testing Service is expanding its efforts to measure how
savvy students are about technology and about the information that they get
online.

After unveiling an information-literacy test last year aimed at students
entering their junior year of college, the testing service has designed a
new version for high-school seniors, to help colleges decide if students can
handle basic information-processing tasks needed for college work. The new
test will be called the ICT Literacy Assesment-Core Level. The first three
letters stand for "information and communication technology."

The new test was developed based on feedback from college officials, said
Teresa M. Egan, project manager for new-product development at ETS. "They
were really in need of something that would measure the skills of students
transitioning from high school to college," she
said.

The testing service will begin pilot studies of the new test in January, Ms.
Egan said. For the first year or so, colleges who give the test will receive
only aggregate scores rather than individual scores for each test-taker.
Later, once ETS officials have developed a baseline, individual scores will
be given.

ETS officials say that by January, they will begin giving individual scores
for the test the organization developed last year, which will now be called
ICT Literacy Assesment-Advanced Level. Both tests are administered online,
and attempt to measure both computer skills, such as whether students know
how to send e-mail attachments, and more general information-processing
skills, such as whether students can determine if an online source is reliable.

Scores for the advanced-level test will range from 400 to 700 points, and
score reports will also contain breakdowns on how students did in each of
seven areas.

ETS plans to increase the price of the test from about $25 per student to
between $35 and $40 per student. Officials at the testing service have also
reduced the length of the exam, from two hours to 75 minutes.

"There was a fatigue factor of students sitting for two hours," said Ms.
Egan. And colleges will now have the option of administering the test in two
parts, so that it can more easily be given during college courses, she said.

The California State University System was among the first colleges to give
the exam, which it used to test 3,300 students on its 23 campuses this year.

Ilene F. Rockman, manager of an information-competence program for the Cal
State office of the chancellor, said the test showed what she had suspected
-- that many students need help when it comes to information literacy.

"The assumptions that are sometimes made, that students are information- and
communication-technology literate, were not always borne out by the results
of this assessment," she said. "What I have said many times is that students
may know how to surf the Web, they may know how to download music and send
e-mail, but that does not mean they know how to analyze information."

Neither she nor Ms. Egan would elaborate on what the aggregate scores
revealed about students' strengths and weaknesses when it comes to IT literacy.

Gordon W. Smith, Cal State's director of systemwide library programs, said
he hopes that one day information literacy will be considered just as
important as math and reading competency. He hopes that the tests might lead
Cal State campuses and other colleges to offer remedial courses or tutorials
to students who score poorly.

"We certainly have some work to do in order to bring the skill levels of our
students in information literacy up to where they ought to be," he said.

Background article from The Chronicle:
* [71]Testing Service to Unveil an Assessment of Computer and
Information Literacy (11/12/2004)

References
71. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i12/12a03301.htm



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