Teaching and assessing students of information literacy in a single session—The case of the University of the West Indies Mona library

Abstract

Assessing the performance of information literacy (IL) students can be a daunting task for librarians globally. Most IL sessions are taught in 1 to 2 hours where any meaningful assessments are difficult to achieve. This research demonstrated how this feat was achieved in an active learning environment through the use of Google Forms. This mixed method study shows how this was effectively achieved to test both lower and higher order skills in a 2 hour session to one hundred and seventy-two foundation writing course students.The research tested a rarely examined feature of Google Forms which is the tool’s effectiveness in enabling comprehensive assessment, facilitating active learning, and identifying instructional errors in an IL instruction session. The findings show that Google Forms can be used to teach and administer a quiz using both multiple-choice as well as open-ended questions to assess both low and higher order learning skills in IL. Students were able to actively respond to questions while they were being taught, the data gathered and analyzed and used to inform future library instruction. It also showed that Google Forms are useful not simply to administer multiple-choice quizzes at the end of teaching but can be used in executing real-time assessment and support active learning. Because Google Forms support the easy creation of charts and downloading/exporting of statistics, results of assessments can be shared among librarians, faculty, and students to motivate and encourage digital pedagogy. It allows for greater collaboration with faculty in the cooperative teaching of students in single sessions where there is usually difficulty in having dialogue with faculty once a session ends. This case study is based on a limited number of students; thus, the findings of this research may not be generalized but the methodology and some skills in teaching the concepts encountered by librarians may be replicated.