Colleges Design A Test To Measure Students’ Internet Intelligence

The Internet is regularly used by students to communicate with professors, apply to colleges online, and even earn degrees online. Because the Internet has been in wide public usage for well over a decade, almost every American student in high school or college has at one time or another used the Internet to do research for class assignments. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they are Internet geniuses, and a new test is being developed to measure just what their Internet IQ is.

Technology has been a standard fixture of higher education for a number of years, ever since the Internet became popular with students. A 2002 report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 79% of college Internet users thought the Internet had a positive impact on their academic experience. More than 70% used the Internet more than the library and 56% said e-mail improved their relationships with professors, probably because the professors were more easily available and students were less intimidated by communicating remotely. Steve Jones, a communications professor at the University of Chicago and a co-author of the study, integrates lessons on Internet usage into his classes. Jones says he tells his students, `Some of you are going to put off this paper until the night before. You're going to go to Google, type in search words and just look at the top five hits and use those. I'm going to grade you on this. I'm going to look at these sources and so let's talk about how to evaluate sources." Jones believes the problem with technology and education is fitting the new technology into existing curriculums and lesson plans. So rather than adding more class time, he keeps teaching the way he always has, but he folds in details about how to use the Internet. At the same time, he pulls no punches about the ethical usage of Internet resources for homework, cautioning students against simply clicking, copying, and pasting in order to complete homework assignments.

According to Lorie Roth, Assistant Vice Chancellor of Academic Programs at California State University, "Every single student that comes through the door thinks that if you just go to Google and get some hits, you've got material for your research paper right there." But knowing how to locate reliable information, knowing how to properly use that information, and knowing how to correctly credit the author of the material, is another thing entirely. So Cal State and several other colleges are working with the Educational Testing Service to create a test to evaluate Internet intelligence. The test is called the Information and Communication Technology Literacy Assessment. Along with Cal State, UCLA, the University of Louisville, the California Community College System, the University of North Alabama, the University of Texas System and the University of Washington are all considering using the test on incoming students to determine whether they need remedial classes. According to Roth, "This test measures a skill as important as having mathematics and English skills when you come to the university. If you don't come to the university with it, you need to know that you are lacking some skills that educated people are expected to have."

Teresa Egan, the project manager for the team developing the test, says that the test will help determine whether the computer skills students already possess are sophisticated enough to be able to help them out with schoolwork. "They're real comfortable instant-messaging, downloading MP3 files. They're less comfortable using technology in ways that require real critical thinking," says Egan. A preliminary version of the test was given to 3,300 Cal State students this spring so the developers could evaluate how well it works, and campuses will get aggregate reports on the results. Students who took the prototype test gave it a thumbs up, saying that it allowed them to go ahead and think through real-life problems. The test is expected to be available next year for students who want to take it voluntarily.

Roth explains that the test mainly focuses on critical thinking skills, the ability to analyze the validity of information and the legitimacy of a website, and how to properly cite research and avoid plagiarism. For today’s students, Internet research does have a downside in that references aren’t as concrete as the ones provided by books in the campus library. But the nostalgia of that library smell familiar to students of decades past will probably be nonexistent for future graduates. It appears that there’s no turning back for students of today—Internet research has a firm hold on academics and it won’t let go. As Roth says, "Anybody want to go back to the bad old days when you had manual typewriters, and you had to get up and walk to the library to look up something? I don't think so."