Developing information literacy skills in re-registration nurses: An experimental study of teaching methods

Brettle, AJ; Raynor, MJ

Abstract

Aim

To compare the effectiveness of an online information literacy tutorial with a face-to-face session for teaching information literacy skills to nurses.
Design

Randomised control trial.
Participants

Seventy-seven first year undergraduate pre-registration diploma nursing students.
Intervention

Online in-house information literacy tutorial
Comparison

One hour face-to-face session, covering the same material as the intervention, delivered by the nursing subject librarian.
Methods

Search histories were scored using a validated checklist covering keyword selection, Boolean operators, truncation and synonyms. Skills retention was measured at 1month using the same checklist. Inferential statistics were used to compare search skills within and between groups pre and post-session.
Results

The searching skills of first year pre-registration nursing students improve following information literacy sessions (p<0.001), and remain unchanged 1month later, regardless of teaching method. The two methods produce a comparable improvement (p=0.263). There is no improvement or degradation of skills 1month post-session for either method (p=0.216).
Conclusion

Nurses Information literacy skills improve after both face-to-face and online instruction. There is no skills degradation at 1month post-intervention for either method.

Citation

Brettle, A., & Raynor, M. (2012). Developing information literacy skills in re-registration nurses: An experimental study of teaching methods. Nurse Education Today, 33(2), 103-109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2011.12.003

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2012
• Deposit Date: Aug 20, 2013
• Journal: Nurse Education Today
• Print ISSN: 0260-6917
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 33
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 103-109
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2011.12.003
• Keywords: information literacy; nurses; experimental study; randomised controlled trial; evidence based practice
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2011.12.003
• Related Public URLs: http://www.nurseeducationtoday.com/home