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Hi Everyone,

Here’s just a quick update about what we did in April with the Threshold Achievement Test for Information Literacy, since we’re busy writing test items and enjoying the spring weather. 🙂

We’re happy to introduce Michelle Dunaway and Lettycia Terrones as the two newest members of our Advisory Board.  Michelle is a librarian who is currently pursuing a PhD in Education Evaluation & Research at Wayne State University in Detroit.  Lettycia is the Education Librarian at Cal State Fullerton and she was a high school English and ESL teacher for seven years before becoming a librarian.

The advisory board members have been drafting and refining performance indicators for the first test module we’re developing.  Here’s a sampling of some we’re working on:

  • Identify reasons for selecting sources that represent a variety of perspectives, values, and judgments.
  • Distinguish when it is appropriate to use a primary scholarly article versus a review article.
  • Arrange a sample set of sources into their appropriate positions on the information cycle.
  • Match descriptions of audience values to descriptions of the authorial expertise they would find most authoritative.

And if you’re interested in learning more about the test development process and research-based item formats, we recommend the following books that have been influential to us so far:

  • Downing, S. M., & Haladyna, T. M. (2006). Handbook of test development. Mahwah, NJ: L. Erlbaum.
  • Haladyna, T. M. (1997). Writing test items to evaluate higher order thinking. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
  • Haladyna, T. M., & Rodriguez, M. C. (2013). Developing and validating test items. New York, NY: Routledge.

We're looking forward to an exciting summer.  Keep checking back for updates. 🙂