On this installment of the LILAC Instruction Chat, we heard from Emma Antobam-Ntekudzi, on her experience conducting instruction for a Nursing 100 (Gerontology) class.
The class was tasked with finding evidence based practice research with very specific criteria (authored by a nurse, published in a nursing journal, published within the last 7 years, etc.). The traditional approach to this course included a one shot session with a librarian followed by appointments with individual students or groups who needed more help. The sessions were more demonstrative with scheduled follow ups expected later.
Challenges to the session included the short time constraints, the difficulty of the research parameters and too much time spent reviewing citation tools like Refworks rather than learning and attempting the research process. The students also proved challenging as they had different levels of experience in research, were often hesitant to research things of their own interest (more interested in finding and writing about an easy topic to research) as well as anxiety about the course load of the nursing program in general.
Instructor Emma Antobam-Ntekudzi decided to change the format of the session in the hopes of creating more time for group work and conversation. The instructor divided the session equally between a lesson and group work. The instructor demonstrated how to use the PICO model (Patient/Population/Problem, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) to identify sources as well as explaining what an evidence based research article includes. Students were asked to conduct research and then answer specific prompts: provide article citation, what were your keywords, does the article have methods, result, and conclusion (Evidence Based Research), what journal is it coming from, and lastly an explanation of the article based on the abstract. While some groups were able to complete the assignment, others were not.
Future suggestions for the session include additional sessions to spend more time helping the students, requesting more session time from the professors, reviewing and discussing the assignment parameters with the nursing program, and creating a flipped model to give the students more time to observe and learn the research process before arriving to the session.
