Sample Test Items

The Threshold Achievement Test assesses students' ability to recall and apply their knowledge and their metacognition about core information literacy dispositions that underlies their behaviors. Through this combination of knowledge and dispositional assessment TATIL offers a unique and valuable measure of the complexities of information literacy.

Disposition Items

Dispositions are at the heart of a student's temperament and play an important role in learning transfer. Dispositions constitute affective facets of information literacy and are essential to students' information literacy outcomes. They indicate students' willingness to consistently apply the skills they have learned in one setting to novel problems in new settings. While some dispositions can be seen as natural tendencies, they may also be cultivated over time through intentionally-designed instruction and through exposure to tacit expectations for student behavior.

To address dispositions in the test, we use scenario-based problem solving items. Students are presented with a scenario describing an ill-defined information literacy challenge related to the content of the module. Following the scenario, students are presented with strategies for addressing the challenge. Students evaluate the usefulness of each strategy.

Knowledge Items

The knowledge items in TATIL are based on information literacy outcomes and performance indicators created by the test developers and advisory board of librarians and other educators. Knowledge items assess an array of cognitive processes that college students develop as they transition from pre-college to college ready to research ready. Mental behaviors tested include understanding (facts, concepts, principles, procedures), problem solving (problem identification, problem definition, analysis, solution proposal), and critical thinking (evaluating, predicting, deductive and inductive thinking). The items are presented in a variety of structured response formats to assess students' information literacy knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Sample Questions

The following examples are not used in the tests. They provide an indication of how the actual questions work. To see real test questions, please follow the steps on the Getting Started page.

Sample Dispositional Item

Sample Knowledge Item #1

Sample Knowledge Item #2

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