LOEX 2026

Assessing students' search strategies skills is challenging. How can we target assessment to specific strategies? How can we gather evidence of learning? This session describes an assessment project that has addressed these challenges.

After search strategy instruction, students complete a worksheet that presents them with three scenarios that describe common search problems. Their task is to suggest two strategies to improve search results for each scenario. This simple assessment targets certain kinds of search skills-such as keywords and filters, or whatever you've taught-while leaving room for creative problem-solving and can be used for either course-embedded instruction or credit courses.

Participants will:
1. Describe two factors that make assessment of search skills challenging.
2. Create a scenario to assess one aspect of your own search skill instruction.