Assessing Students’ Information Literacy Skills Using MAP-Works

University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg AiA Team Members: Amanda Folk (Director, Millstein Library),Jackie Horrall (Assistant VPAA), and Sheila Confer (Assistant Director of the Academic Village)

Research Question: Do students at Pitt-Greensburg

demonstrate a progressive increase in their information literacy skills as they move through coursework toward degree completion?

Description: Our project investigates the use MAP-Works

transition and check-up surveys as vehicles for information literacy assessment. The use of these surveys will allow us to track students’ progress longitudinally and hopefully increase the data we are able to collect from upperclassmen.

This project is part of the program “Assessment in Action: Academic Libraries and Student Success” which is undertaken by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) in partnership with the Association for Institutional Research and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. The program, a cornerstone of ACRL's Value of Academic Libraries initiative, is made possible by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Students’ Strengths

• Defining a scholarly article• Getting background info• Identifying appropriate evaluation

questions• Citing and understanding what

paraphrasing is

Students’ Weaknesses

• Selecting characteristics of a scholarly article

• Determining an appropriate topic scope• Boolean searching using OR

What’s Next?

Analyze results of this assessment in combination with results of the HEDS Research Practices Survey

Use results of both assessments to develop tiered learning outcomes.

Use results of both assessments to begin conversations with teaching faculty about embedding information literacy explicitly into their courses.

Think about developing a bank of valid and reliable assessment questions, especially if this becomes our main vehicle for information literacy assessment.

Results

What is MAP-Works?MAP-Works is an interactive student success tool that helps students make a successful transition to college, provides key information to faculty and professional staff, creates opportunities for early intervention, connects students to campus resources and re-aligns student expectations to improve their learning experience.

MAP-Works uses survey, institutional data and input by staff and faculty to create individualized risk indicators and reports for each student.

Timeline and Process

Developed and

submitted an expedited

IRB application in order to collect data in summer

2015.

Met to finalize questions to be added to the

MAP-Works fall transition

(freshmen and sophomores)

and fall check-up (juniors and

seniors) surveys.

Collected data during

the fall 2015

semester.

Analyzed data using Stata during the

spring 2016 semester. Most

analysis was descriptive.

Report of preliminary findings to Greensburg

campus and ULS administrations.

Presentation about information literacy skills to

Greensburg campus faculty.

(n=377) (n=54) (n=131)

5.72

6.747.41

FRESHMEN SOPHOMORES JUNIORS AND

SENIORS

MEAN SCORES BY COHORT

(OUT OF 9 POINTS)

Hypothesis testing revealed a statistically significant increase in scores between incoming freshmen, sophomores, and upperclassmen.