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IT Literacy Test
crumley writes "The Educational Testing Service just announced a new
test that is designed to measure information technology literacy. The test is supposed to measure the ability of students to use software to solve problems, and not just how to use particular programs. So has anyone out there taken a test like this? Did it seem to measure critical thinking and problem solving skills?"
... but a test like this seems long overdue. I can't tell you how irritated I get when some new snotnose paper-MCSE comes strollin into my office thinking they know everything. If the test is accurate, fair, and relevant, I might consider it as part of the candidate screening process when hiring new IT workers.
bash: rtfm: command not found
What a useless thing to test. If you think logically and can break problems down, anything in operating computers simply comes down to Googling, reading, and thinking logically. This is about as useless as just a plain old IQ test, SAT, or any other standardized "bubble" test in assessing future work/educational performance. In fact, I bet an IQ test would be just as effective in this situation. My guess is that it is simply knowledge based, not action based (wasn't willing to drudge through ETS's corporate "Yeah us!" language). ETS should take a hint from Cisco. Their tests are difficult and actually ("GASP!") test performance in real world situations in solving real world examples and problems using real Cisco gear.
I'm the network admin for a school. I've been doing this for seven years and have been teaching computer classes for five. I teach the 7th grade how to do simple programming in LOGO. They learn the concepts of loops, variables, functions, etc. They learn how to take a problem, break it into parts and come up with a program to solve the problem. They also learn a bit of computer history and how to count and do simple math in binary. I believe I'm the only one doing this in my area.
I deal with a number of people in my position in other schools. Without fail, the computer "literacy" classes in those schools is training in Microsoft Office. They're just training kids to use a particular version of a particular product from ONE company. They're not teaching them the concepts behind a modern word processor, they're training them how to click buttons in Word.
When I started this job, I thought education was all about teaching people how to think and solve problems. I was wrong!
I'm fortunate at this job in that I'm pretty much free to use whatever solutions get the job done. 80% of the machines here are Linux based terminals (using LTSP). I'm also fortunate that I won the old teaching concepts vs. training argument with the administration. I'm free to teach the computer literacy class however I wish.
It's easier to test for incompetency than for competency.
A company I worked for got so many liars applying for jobs that we made these rediculous little tests to give people. Here's a sample question from our C test:
Or for electrical engineers:
I thought these tests were a waste of time. I think I said something like, "If someone is breathing they'll pass it." Then I saw how many people who claimed "expert" on their resume failed the liar's test. Weeding out the liars left us with a much smaller pool of candidates.
People I know who score higher on ETS tests tend to be smarter than people I know who score lower on ETS tests.
Or they cheat better.
Or they have money to spend on preparation classes.
Or they're white.
Either way, the ETS tests can very actively tell admissions counselors which students are the the wealthiest white cheaters who are not totally stupid.
paintball
The best problem solving test I ever took was while applying for a job as a student tech. The boss put me in front of a computer with WordPerfect running on it. He said "change the background of the entire page to another color." and watched what I did for a while.
What made this an interesting problem was, despite being able to go to the menu and look at, I forget exactly, but Format -> Page or something, and having some options there for changing some things, background color was not an option. So if you are me you dig around on the menu a while.
Then you finally give up and pull up the help and search. Then you find the entry that says: To change the background color, go to Format -> Page and click on the background tab. Then select a new color. You say wtf (quietly) and go back to Format -> Page. There is no background tab. You go back to the help. Yep, that's what they told you to do.
Turns out, by default, some checkbox on the first tab of the page properties dialog disables the tab you need to get to to change the background. Some seemingly completely unrelated checkbox. I got lucky, clicked around and found it. Then changed the background color.
Turns out, I was the only person to have ever successfully completed the task. The purpose of the test was not to see if you could solve the problem. The purpose was to give an unsolvable problem, and watch the proccess you use to try and solve it. I thought that was a much better way to test skills.
Lucky me, I figured out the solution, which so impressed them that I was hired, despite them having already picked someone else for the job (they just hired both of us instead).
Try it yourself, I believe it was whatever version of WordPerfect was out in '98.
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