In this study, we assess differences in student performance between community college students who had and had not participated in our library’s “Research Basics” instructional badging program. We combine quantitative and qualitative assessment of student performance.

When given prompts for two hypothetical research assignments, students selected one source for each, then narrated their search and evaluation process using a “think aloud” method. Librarians rated the sources chosen by students according to a rubric derived from the Association of American Colleges and Universities Information Literacy VALUE rubric.

We found that the students who had earned badges were more familiar with library resources and better at articulating the value of a library, yet there were no significant differences in the ability to evaluate information sources of students who had or had not earned the badges. This finding informed a redesign of our source evaluation badge. Most prominently, our evaluation badge shifted from emphasizing the CRAAP criteria to using the SIFT Moves as the basis for evaluation instruction, along with an introduction to hallmark indicators of more reliable sources.