Evaluation of the psychometric properties of the general literacy test for university students

This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the General Literacy Test for University Students. To develop the assessment framework, the educational objectives of general literacy courses of universities in Taiwan as well as the core competencies of Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills were all reviewed and considered. The general literacy test is composed of nine literacy domains: communication and collaboration, esthetics, information, lifelong learning, career, leadership, problem solving, social concerns and citizenship, and scientific thinking. The items of the general literacy test were developed into a multimedia assessment. In addition, booklets including two to three testlets on each of the nine literacy domains were organized. Overall, 10,958 students from 20 universities participated. The results demonstrated that testlet effect could be ignored and the partial credit model could be used to analyze data. In addition, the items fit the partial credit model closely and the test demonstrated favorable construct validity. In addition, small differences existed between gender and grades. The results were consistent with those of previous studies and showed that the test’s criterion-related validity was acceptable. Furthermore, the standard error of ability ranged from .20 to .60 logit and the reliabilities of the booklets were more than .69 in the nine literacy domains. The evidence supports the high degree of reliability and validity of basic literacy assessment.