Online Performance Assessment of students’ information literacy skills in Science, Mathematics and Mother Tongue

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: This paper reports on an exploratory study commissioned by the Hong Kong SAR government to assess students’ information literacy (IL) outcomes as an evaluation of the impact of the second IT in education strategy (EMB, 2004) on fostering students’ 21st century learning outcomes. The study pilots an online performance assessment for measuring students’ ICT technical proficiency and their ability to make effective use of ICT for learning and problem solving in specific curriculum areas. Educational and scientific importance This study assesses students’ IL outcomes in seven dimensions: using appropriate ICT tools to define information needs; access and manage various forms of digital information; integrate information from multiple sources; create appropriate representations of information, communicate in digital environments and evaluate the authority, bias and timeliness of materials accessed. Contributions from this study include the design and piloting of online IL assessment instruments and the provision of empirical evidence on the extent to which the policy expectation for ICT use in education to bring about otherwise inaccessible learning experiences and more advanced learning outcomes has been realized. Assessment instruments Five online performance instruments were developed to assess the following: technical information literacy skills (for use with students from grades 5 and 8), information literacy in Mathematics and Chinese language at grade 5 and information literacy in Science and Chinese language at grade 8. Each of the instruments comprises a set of problem solving tasks set around familiar contexts and authentic problem situations requiring the demonstration of the seven dimensions of information literacy for their completion. Subject specific tools such as interactive applets for geometric exploration and simulations for exploring the ecological impact of different human interventions are provided to students as aids for solving problems which are otherwise too complex for the students. Data Fifty intact classes of students from grades 5 and 8 respectively were randomly sampled from all publicly funded schools. The tasks were administered on a web-based remote server via school computer laboratories. Students’ online activities were logged and answers automatically stored on the remote server. Some of the answers were automatically scored while others were scored by trained teachers according to a pre-defined rubric. Analysis and results The study found that students’ IL levels were relatively low despite eight years of IT implementation across the curriculum. Students’ performance were better in the define and access dimensions while integrate, evaluate and communicate were relatively weak. Further, the correlation between technical IL competence and IL in the subject areas were low, indicating that the appropriate integration of subject specific digital tools and resources are necessary for the use of IT to empower students’ learning in the subject disciplines.