Evidence Based Librarianship and Information Literacy

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Evidence Based Librarianship and Information
Literacy

• An experience
• at the University of Parma
• Monica Vezzosi, Maria Letizia Sora, Fabrizia
  Bevilacqua

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A path to evidence-based practice

• Bibliographic instruction activity
• at the University of Parma 2001-2004

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A path to evidence-based practice

• Bibliographic instruction activity
• at the University of Parma 2001-2004
• Unsatisfactory learning outcomes

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A path to evidence-based practice

• Bibliographic instruction activity
• at the University of Parma 2001-2004
• Unsatisfactory learning outcomes
• New approach to teaching bringing together
• Enquiry
• Practice
• Reflection
• Sharing

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IL at the University of Parma2001-2004

• Seminar From the Library to the Net
• Start 2001
• 15 hours class activity
• Two credits
• Teachers librarians
• IT Laboratory

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Contents and methods

• Online catalogues
• E-journals
• Databases
• Searching the Web
• Citation rules

• Tool based approach
• Lecture with some hands-on activities
• One teacher each research tool

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Learning outcomes

• Students became able to
• access online research tools
• use them during hands-on activity

• Students did not become able to
• manage an actual research process
• connect different sources of information
• evaluate their search strategy

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Research project
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Research project
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Research project
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Research project
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Research project
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Prototype Seminar

• Action research project
• 25 students Environmental sciences (2. year)
• Analysis of students knowledge, skills and
  attitudes during and after the learning activity
• Qualitative approach

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Prototype Seminar

• Action research project
• Seminar embedded into the Ecology course
• Active learning, co-operative learning, and
  problem-based learning.
• Research group task focusing the whole activity
  on the research process
• Contents presented in relation to students
  group task

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Outcomes

• At the end of the prototype Seminar
• students appeared able to
• access online search tools, and also to connect
  and use them in a flexible way
• to manage an actual research process and to
  assess their own work
• the team work stimulated students to engage
  themselves in their task
• students appeared encouraged to apply critical
  thinking skills to retrieved information.

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The New Seminar

• Decision to export approach and techniques in
  standard situations and to analyse learning
  outcomes
• Goals
• To verify if teaching methods based on team work
  and focusing on the research process could be
  successfully adopted in standard situations.
• To found the assessment of the teaching activity
  on more rigorous and measurable evaluation
  criteria

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Two different standard situations

• PHARMACY
• IL seminar inserted in curriculum as an optional
  activity attributing two credits.
• The teaching librarian is in charge of organising
  and delivering the Seminar
• She is entrusted of assessing students
  learning.

• COMMUNICATION STUDIES
• Digital Publishing teacher interested in
  embedding IL Seminar into her course
• Learning plan requires students to work in groups
  and to carry out a piece of research on a
  pre-defined topic related to Digital publishing

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Two different standard situations

• COMMUNICATION STUDIES
• Digital Publishing teacher interested in
  embedding IL Seminar into her course
• Learning plan requires students to work in groups
  and to carry out a piece of research on a
  pre-defined topic related to Digital publishing

• PHARMACY
• IL seminar inserted in curriculum as an optional
  activity attributing two credits.
• The teaching librarian is in charge of organising
  and delivering the Seminar
• She is entrusted of assessing students
  learning.

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Founding principles

• 1- Focus on the research process
• 2- Motivate students
• 3- Few contents and learning material
• 4- Involve students in revision and
  contextualisation of their learning.

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Contents

• Pharmacy
• Know-item search
• OPACs and e- journals
• Subject search
• Databases (PubMed, Current Contents,ScienceDirect
  )
• The Web
• Search engines, subject directories

• Communication Studies
• Know-item search
• OPACs and e- journals
• Subject search
• Databases (LISA, Emerald, ScienceDirect)
• The Web
• Search engines, subject directories

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Organisation

• Pharmacy
• 2 groups of students
• 21-33
• 16 hours class activity
• Final presentation
• Team tasks
• annotated list of information resources
• 5-6 people each
• doping and sport relation between cancer and
  diet therapy nutrition disorders and
  adolescents children and obesity

• Communication Studies
• One group 69 students
• 8 hours class activity (three parallel classes)
• Two students presentations
• Team tasks
• 1. Presentation each group presents the class
  the contents learned during class activity
• 2. Presentation each group presents
• their piece of research on Digital publishing
  issues
• 20-25 people each
• Metadata Preservation of digital content
  Economical issue about digital publishing

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Organisation

• Communication Studies
• One group 69 students
• 8 hours class activity (three parallel classes)
• Two students presentations
• Team tasks
• 1. Presentation each group presents the class
  the contents learned during class activity
• 2. Presentation each group presents their piece
  of research on Digital publishing issues
• 20-25 people each
• Metadata Preservation of digital content
  Economics issues about digital publishing

• Pharmacy
• 2 groups of students
• 21-33
• 16 hours class activity
• Final presentation
• Team tasks
• annotated list of information resources
• 5-6 people each
• doping and sport relation between cancer and
  diet therapy nutrition disorders and
  adolescents children and obesity

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Assessment methods

• Pre/Post test
• 17 multiple answers questions on issues
  treated during the seminar
• Students group tasks
• Open ended questionnaire

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Findings
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Performance and improvement
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Group tasks

• Pharmacy
• Most groups offered a good performance
• Choice of valuable and pertaining resources
• Adoption of advanced search techniques
• Critical account of their findings
• Two groups offered a lower level performance
• Focusing only on contents
• Showing a partial understanding of the research
  task

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Group task

• Communication study
• good presentation related to the contents of the
  class activities
• less valuable works on the subjects related to
  Digital publishing
• each group adopted mainly one research tool
• some groups only adopted quick and easy
  research tools
• resources not completely pertaining
• difficulty in identifying authoritative papers

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Open ended questionnaire

• Both groups are satisfied on
• The practical approach to learning
• hands-on activity
• The contents of the learning materials

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Open ended questionnaire

• Pharmacy students
• Were enthusiastic on the team work
• Highly appreciated the revising activity
• Were aware of the importance of being information
  literate
• Linked information competence to their future
  professional life
• Showed a positive and proactive attitude towards
  learning

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Open ended questionnaire

• Communication students
• Showed appreciation for the seminar as a whole
• Were quite critical on some aspects
• Excessive workload
• Number of credits
• Team work was considered sometimes tiring and
  frustrating
• The inadequate equiment at the Faculty of
  Humanities, which hindered their team working
• The need to download the learning material

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Discussion

• Both groups of students have improved their
  knowledge and skills.
• The research process is still the most critical
  aspect in students learning there is a need to
  focus even more on this aspect
• The annotated list of resource is more suitable
  as a learning task than the actual piece of
  research
• The revising activity made by students is
  valuable but cannot replace teachers lessons

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Discussion

• The pre-post test is suitable both to measure
  students performance and to tailor learning
  contents before the activity starts
• The comparative analysis of students team tasks
  provides evidence of the level of competence in
  the research process
• The open ended questionnaire provides information
  on students experience of the whole activity in
  a limited amount of time

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Conclusions

• EBL is the right approach to ground teaching
  practice on research-derived evidence
• Co-operation among teaching librarians is a
  powerful tool for
• improvement of teaching practice,
• organisational development,
• and professional growth

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THANKS!!

• Monica Vezzosi
• Maria Letizia Sora
• Fabrizia Bevilacqua