Test Your Internet Skills: Introducing the iSkills Assessment

However, even with a head full of HTML and lightning-fast fingers on a keyboard, do you really know how to use the Internet to your best advantage when it comes to scholarly research? It may seem as easy as a couple of taps and a double click, but therein lies the problem. Educators and school officials are increasingly concerned that many students believe that great research material can be found by simply typing a properly-worded query into a search engine and clicking on the first few hits that appear. Given the thousands of hits most queries produce, it's deceivingly easy to find something of value, right?

It is possible, but it's just as likely to pull up a lot of unsubstantiated garbage, too!

Not-so-sophisticated
Several articles have surfaced recently citing studies and statistics indicating that many of today's high school and college students don't actually know how to use the Internet to find truly scholarly information that a professor would deem legitimate. One study actually observed college students using university computer labs to primarily check their e-mail! Students that were observed doing actual schoolwork used ordinary commercial search engines to seek information, rather than utilizing the school's free access to academic information.

Reports of Internet plagiarism are also on the rise, raising another red flag for many educators — it seems the old "cut and paste" provides a beeline to the completion of research papers for a growing number of students. Ethics don't seem to be the problem, however. Educators believe that poor research skills and the prevalence of "borrowing" from Web sites are the direct result of a lack of understanding of proper Internet use, and not a symptom of an entire generation of dishonest students.

Testing your Internet IQ
With these concerns in mind, a group of concerned colleges and universities joined hands with ETS (Educational Testing Service) to develop a test for schools to use to determine the Internet IQ of incoming students. Schools don't intend to use this new screening measure as another means of turning away less desirable students, but rather, as a means to determine if their new students have the skills they need to successfully and ethically use and evaluate information they glean from Internet-based research. Those found lacking may be required to attend a class or orientation during their first semester to learn the skills they'll need for the next few years…and beyond.

This new test — The iSkills Assessment — measures your ability to use digital technology, communication tools, and/or networks appropriately to solve information problems so you can function adequately in an information society. There are two separate tests. The Core Academic Assessment is intended for students heading off to college or who are in the first two years of college; it helps schools identify college-readiness and determine appropriate course selections based on test performance. A second version of the test, The Advanced Assessment, is for students transitioning to upper-level coursework.

What it's like
Administered entirely via computer, the iSkills Assessment uses real-time, scenario-based tasks to measure seven key cognitive and technical skills students need to work effectively with technology and information. Over the course of 75 minutes, a student’s ability to define, access, manage, integrate, evaluate, create, and communicate information is evaluated through tasks that require them to do such things as use a database, display and interpret data, and conduct searches. Schools can use the scores to identify students’ proficiencies and weaknesses and to plan accordingly based on aggregate and individual data.

Test dates
These new tests may or may not be utilized by schools you're considering so you may want to find out if you'll need to take it. If you'd like more details about the tests and what to expect, visit www.ets.org.

Help is on the way
Recognizing that the Internet has become a prime resource for student research, search engine giant Google has launched Google Scholar. If your habit of using commercial search engines to dig up information just can't be broken, Google Scholar will at least help you find viable scholarly information using a new set of search matrixes that they developed to scour a variety of academic sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities, and other scholarly organizations. You can check it out at www.googlescholar.com.

Article complements of Peterson's. Learn more tips about testing college entrance exams and take a free practice tests by clicking here.