This project is developing useful assessment tools that will provide a better understanding of engineering students' self-directed learning skills and a valid measure of how these skills improve. While there are assessment instruments that address these skills, most of them focus on information search skills rather than information literacy. Prior efforts to measure information literacy skills of engineering majors have employed self-report measures rather than direct measures of student skills. This project is developing direct measures. It is a partnership between the engineering and library science faculties. The project has developed promising pilot data, supported by a seed grant from the Purdue Engineer of 2020 program. Two assessment instruments have been pilot tested, psychometrically evaluated, and compared to a more authentic (direct) measure of information literacy. The resulting initial measures of validity and reliability for these instruments are promising. Further evaluation is necessary to test the instruments more robustly. The continued development of these two instruments and resources is being conducted at Purdue University, Arizona State University, the University of Arkansas, and other collaborating institutions, with the purpose that the polished instruments will be disseminated to the wider higher education community. It is anticipated that the research findings will guide the design of instructional modules aligned with student needs in developing improved information literacy skills.
