set 2006: no. 2

How effective are secondary school students’ information-literacy skills in the tertiary environment? When the authors looked at the expectation Years 12–13 teachers have of their students’ information-literacy competence in their first tertiary year, and compared this with polytechnic lecturers’ experience of first-year students’ competence and the students’ own expectations of their confidence and competence, some thought-provoking patterns emerged.

Charles answers the following questions:

• If we pre- and post-test every unit, are we overtesting?
• How can we determine whether our students have progressed if we do not test every unit?
• Is it valid to test students soon after they have received instruction in something?
• Should parents know where their children stand in terms of test data, or should we only use it for our teaching purposes?
• When is Stanine 4 and above average?