NCSU Libraries Focus Online

Volume 24 number 3 - Spring 2004

By Steve McCann and Megan Oakleaf, Research and Information Services

Undergraduate students think they are skilled Internet searchers, but are they really information literate? The NCSU Libraries plans to find out by participating in the Standardized Assessment for Information Literacy Skills (SAILS) project, an effort endorsed by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) to develop a standardized test of information literacy skills that can be used by all academic libraries. By participating in the SAILS project, the Libraries has an opportunity to play a role in a nationwide test validation program.

The American Library Association's (ALA) 1989 Presidential Committee on Information Literacy stated that information literacy is the ability to "recognize when information is needed and . . . locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information." While librarians agree that information literacy skills are critical to students' lifelong success, previous attempts to assess these skills have been isolated within individual institutions. For the first time, ARL has selected a test to be explored at multiple universities.

The SAILS instrument was first developed at Kent State University. As stated on the project's Web site, the Kent State SAILS team has designed a test it hopes is "valid and thus credible to university administrators and other academic personnel." The ARL supports these efforts and has included SAILS on its agenda for the Learning Outcomes Working Group under its New Measures Initiative.

Kent State librarians, to provide feedback on the effectiveness of instruction, developed questions tied to Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and American Association of School Librarians (AASL) standards for information literacy. After sharing these questions with colleagues and individual undergraduate students, the librarians sought more systematic means of testing the questions with larger student populations. In 2000 the first SAILS test was administered to nearly 100 first-year students. In 2002 the SAILS test was administered to students in three institutions, and the SAILS team won an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant to expand the project. As a result, three phases of test development were planned. Phase I would include ten institutions, Phase II would include thirty institutions, and Phase III would include 100 institutions.

The NCSU Libraries is currently involved in Phase II of SAILS development. Through partnerships with NC State's First Year College (FYC), Steve McCann, an NCSU Libraries Fellow, and Megan Oakleaf, librarian for instruction and undergraduate research, will administer the SAILS test to nearly 600 FYC students this semester. Oakleaf also serves on the SAILS Advisory Committee. At NC State, the test is an ungraded course requirement for nearly 600 First Year College students. Each student receives a test packet that includes the SAILS test and corresponding surveys meant to assess both the student’s motivation to answer the questions correctly and to gather feedback on the test itself. Each test includes forty-five questions, which are randomly chosen from a bank of more than 140 questions. The questions address skills from among the following sets: developing a topic; scholarly communication and structure of disciplines; types of sources; selecting finding tools; selecting search terms; constructing a search; evaluating and revising search results; evaluating and selecting sources; documenting sources; and economic, legal, and social issues.

Once the completed SAILS tests are returned to the Libraries, student demographic data will be gathered from the Division of Undergraduate Affairs. Later, the SAILS Advisory Committee will use aggregated test scores and demographics from all Phase II institutions to inform decisions regarding future SAILS development. Results from the NCSU Libraries' participation in the project will be available this summer at the 2004 ALA annual conference in Orlando, Florida.

Participating in the SAILS project brings many benefits to the NCSU Libraries. At a time when universities and colleges are funneling increasing resources into information literacy programs, there is a need to determine whether these programs are making a difference. Libraries need valid and reliable methods to assess the impact and outcomes of their instruction programs over time. The FYC students, by helping librarians understand what students already know and where they need the most help, will reap the benefit of improved information literacy skills instruction. Participation in SAILS is an important step in this process.