Most youths may be tech savvy, but they lack ‘digital literacy,
An interesting point to consider in the NetGen/Millennial conversation…
Most youths may be tech savvy, but they lack ‘digital literacy,’ report says:
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/15131207.htm
Most youths may be tech savvy, but they lack ‘digital literacy,’ report says
By LEILA FADEL
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
* Educational Testing Service
Like most 22-year-olds, Ghida El-Hajj-Sleiman could surf the Web. But in college, the biomedical engineering student realized how much she didn’t know.
No one taught her how to use online databases. She picked up tips about the library catalog from friends.
“I didn’t know how to research like that,” said El-Hajj-Sleiman, a graduate student at the University of Texas at Arlington.
She said she learned by trial and error.
“I just had to jump around.”
Of 10,000 high school and college students asked to evaluate a set of Web sites last fall, nearly half could not correctly judge which was the most objective, reliable and timely, according to preliminary results of a digital-literacy assessment. The Information and Communication Technology Assessment was administered by Educational Testing Service, a New Jersey nonprofit organization.
“What we’re finding is not only does it [digital literacy] need to be taught at the higher education level, it needs to be taught a lot younger than that,” said Terry Egan, project manager for the assessment. “I’m hoping that having an assessment like this available is going to change the paradigm of what people think is important to test and important to teach.” Students may know how to use an Internet search engine, but professors have complained that the online information students use is not reliable, said Mary Jo Lyons, information literacy coordinator at UT-Arlington.
Now, some professors are requesting seminars to teach students about the library catalog and the approximately 200 computer databases available to them at the UT-Arlington library. But unless specified in a class, information literacy seminars are not required.
“There’s nothing wrong with Google,” Lyons said. “They know how to type in words and search, but it’s how they evaluate whether it’s a quality site. That’s the problem. . . . They’re citing Joe Schmo’s paper in their paper, but who is Joe Schmo? And is he objective?”
The testing service, along with colleges and universities nationwide — including Tarrant County College and the UT System — has developed the first assessment to measure how students find, judge and use information online. A key element is evaluating whether they can take the information and generate their own analyses or projects, Egan said.
This fall, the tests will be widely available to colleges and high schools. They will be charged $27 to $33 for each test, depending on the size of the order.
Students are growing up in an age when everything is electronic, said Charles DeSassure, chairman of the computer science department at TCC Southeast Campus. They text-message, carry Palm Pilots, tote laptops and download music on their iPods, but they often can’t use critical thinking to apply technology to practical problems, he said.
For the first time this fall, TCC will require a computer competency class for all students.
“Can an average person go to the public library and use a simple database?” asked DeSassure, a member of the National Advisory Committee for the development of the assessment. “We’re looking for competence. There are certain basic skill levels that we hope the average student would possess.”
At many colleges today, faculty and administrators seem to take it for granted that their students know how to use Internet databases and computer programs, some students said.
When UT-Arlington students were asked what they use for research on campus, without hesitation most responded “Google.”
“It’s the easiest to get around with,” said Jeremie Ayers, 19, a TCC student who is transferring to UT-Arlington in the fall.
Many conceded that they don’t know how to do much else on the Internet.
Tao-Heng Pan, 25, took a seminar on Internet research as a graduate student. She learned about Engineering Village, an engineering database she uses for research. She said most of her peers don’t know where to turn on the Internet besides free search engines. “It’s complicated,” she said.
The Association of College and Research Librarians refers to it as “data smog.”
Students deal with an abundance of information available to them from the comfort of their computer desk, but they can’t necessarily weed through it without training.
The assessment is also a much-needed source of proof of digital skills, said Pedro Reyes, associate vice chancellor for academic planning and assessment for the UT System.
“It’s a critical area,” said Reyes, who is also involved with the development of the assessment. “I think a lot of students have these skills, but there’s no way to prove it to their employers. We’ve never had a tool to help us understand that.”
It can also show colleges what’s missing in their curricula, ETS officials said.
“We can’t expect teachers to change what they’re doing overnight,” Egan said. “It’s really a whole sea of change.”
IN THE KNOW Information on literacy
A test being developed by the nonprofit Educational Testing Service of Princeton, N.J., would for the first time assess how college students get information digitally and how they analyze the information, use it and judge its quality. Results of a pilot assessment of 10,000 high school and postsecondary students in 2005 showed that:
When asked to narrow an overly broad information search, only 35 percent of students selected the correct revision.
When students were asked to evaluate a set of Web sites for objectivity, reliability and timeliness, only 48 percent of test-takers picked the site that met all the standards.
ONLINE: www.ets.org
Source: Educational Testing Service Leila Fadel, 817-685-3806
lfadel@star-telegram.com