Information Literacy Skills Retention Over the First Professional Year of Pharmacy School

• Published in: Medical reference services quarterly Vol. 33; no. 3; pp. 302 - 312
• Main Authors: Chiarella, Deborah, Khadem, Tina M., Brown, Jack E., Wrobel, Mark J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Taylor & Francis Group 01.07.2014
• Subjects: Academic libraries; Adult; Computer Literacy; Curriculum; Databases, Bibliographic - utilization; Education, Pharmacy; Educational Measurement; Female; Health administration; Humans; Information literacy; Information Storage and Retrieval - standards; knowledge retention; Learning; library instruction; Library Science - education; Male; New York; Pharmacy; pharmacy instruction; Students; New York; pharmacy instruction; knowledge retention; Information literacy; library instruction
• ISSN: 0276-3869; 1540-9597
• DOI: 10.1080/02763869.2014.925693

The authors aimed to determine if first-professional-year pharmacy students retain library literature search skills throughout the school year. Students (n = 61 consented) were given an identical seven-item quiz on basic library search skills prior to library instruction in the fall semester and at the end of the spring semester. There was no significant difference between median scores on the two quizzes, nor were any significant differences noted in subgroup analyses. Search competency may be retained to a higher degree if library instruction is moved later in the pharmacy curriculum when literature search skills are used more often.