Designing and implementing web-based tools to assess information competences of social science students at Spanish universities

Abstract

We describe the process of designing and applying four web-based tools that assess information competences, focused on Social Science students at Spanish universities. We draw on our previous experience in developing web resources, tests and tutorials for learning information skills (E-coms, Alfamedia, Alfineees, Infolitrans, IL-HUMASS). The toolkit includes: 1) a corpus of texts with a controlled degree of difficulty to be used by students when acquiring the required competences; 2) the IL-HUMASS questionnaire, which measures students' attitudes and perceptions on the importance and self-effectiveness of information competences; 3) a knowledge test, organised in four categories (information search, evaluation, processing, and communication-dissemination); and 4) assessment rubrics, designed to prove students' know-how by fulfilling a set of objective tasks. The combined application of these instruments to a sample of students of Social Science degrees allowed us to confirm the internal validity and reliability of our tools.