Hi Everyone!
As spring semester gave way to summer sessions, we had our first in-person item writing meeting for the Threshold Achievement Test. Advisory board members in southern California met up at Hill Street Cafe in Oceanside to spend the day drafting test questions that will assess learners' ability to evaluate sources and identify the process used to create information. Writing items gave us the chance to further refine our performance indicators, as we recognized unclear wording and "double barrel" indicators that were trying to describe two behaviors at once.
In May, Michelle Dunaway began compiling a set of IL dispositions based on her research, including review of the Project Information Literacy reports. These efforts will facilitate development of the scales we're planning to use to assess students' values and self-efficacy related to evaluating sources and identifying the information creation process. We are excited to meet the challenge of creating a test that will assess students' knowledge, skills, and abilities as well as their dispositions. Research on measuring affective characteristics is helping us to clearly define our approach. If you're interested, you might check out Instrument Development in the Affective Domain by McCoach, Gable, and Madura.
In June, we're looking forward to additional item writing meetings. And Carrick Enterprises will be hosting a booth at ALA in San Francisco. Rick and Carolyn will be available to answer questions and share more about the test. And I'll be dropping by the booth, too. Don't miss your chance to take our personality quiz and find out which of the IL Frames you are! We hope we'll see you there!