Abstract


Abstract

Information Retrieval Skills of Nursing Seniors : A Comparison of Actual Skills with Faculty Perceptions
Rita Smith
Rural Health Information Clearinghouse (RHIC) Medical Librarian
Medical & LRC, Mercer University School of Medicine, Macon, GA

Purpose: Librarians routinely observe that students appear to lack the most basic knowledge and skills necessary to effectively retrieve and use the information available to them in their respective fields of study. Nursing students may experience particular difficulty because of their need to utilize information resources from the fields of both nursing and medicine. Gaps in student knowledge may be compounded by a lack of awareness on the part of faculty of the enormous problems students face in using the most basic library resources. This study evaluates the information retrieval skills of graduating seniors of a baccalaureate nursing program, and compares their actual skills with faculty perceptions of those same skills.

Setting / Methodology: A thirty-three item multiple-choice test on basic library and information retrieval skills was administered to sixty-seven seniors enrolled in their final semester of the baccalaureate nursing program at Jacksonville State University, a regional university in northeast Alabama. During the same time period, a survey was sent to all full-time nursing faculty at the school, asking them to indicate their level of confidence in graduating seniors' knowledge of those areas addressed on the student test. Additional faculty survey questions gathered information on faculty utilization of library instruction and faculty perceptions of the methods by which students learn effective library and information retrieval skills.

Results: Despite reporting high confidence in their own information retrieval abilities, students correctly answered only 56.6% of questions on the multiple-choice test, clearly indicating large gaps in their knowledge of effective information retrieval. The faculty survey portion of the study was completed by ten of the fifteen full-time nursing faculty, a response rate of 66.7%. Results of the faculty survey indicate that many recognize student difficulties in making use of library resources; however, only half of the respondents have arranged for library instruction. The majority of those responding believe that students learn to use library resources on their own, or by asking a librarian for assistance.