Leveraging collaboration for information literacy in psychology

Abstract

A case study of the integration of information literacy into a psychology research course is presented. The process of integration began with developing learning outcomes, a fourhour curriculum, exercises, and an assessment instrument, which were approved by the Psychology Department's undergraduate curriculum committee. Also emphasized is the ongoing exchange of expertise between liaison librarian and psychology faculty to enhance library-related components in the design of the course. Difficulties in implementing the program are described, along with the use of outcome statistics to underscore the value of the partially implemented program. Librarians used data from student assessments to highlight the need for more intensive and extensive student training to meet learning objectives. The sometimes laborious process of academic negotiation is discussed, along with the resulting decision to develop a psychology literature tutorial through collaboration between a junior Psychology Department faculty member and a librarian.

Whose Hands Ply the Strands? Survey of Eastern Michigan University Psychology Faculty Regarding Faculty and Librarian Roles in Nurturing Psychology Information Literacy

“…They threw out half the content of the course and spend more time teaching students how to obtain, interpret, and use data. Thaxton, Faccioli, and Mosby (2004) reported some success shaping student information literacy skills in an undergraduate psychology research methods course when four contact hours over two class periods were devoted to instruction and hands-on exploits. The availability and willingness of librarians to collaborate with and support both disciplinary faculty and students in advancing these skills makes for a more robust community of learners, enhancing the effectiveness of faculty and increasing the likelihood of student growth and transformation.…”

Working Together: Academic Librarians and Faculty Collaborating to Improve Students' Information Literacy Skills: A Literature Review 2000–2009

“…This continuous collaboration led to the eventual implementation of the library instruction program. The students were given pretests and posttests, and the students' posttests indicated that students benefited from the information literacy instruction (Thaxton, Faccioli, and Mosby 2004).…”

Assessing information literacy among German psychology students

“…There were only a few efforts to create Psychology-specific information literacy instruction (e.g. Lampert, 2005;Thaxton et al, 2004). This is not surprising, as relevant ACRL Psychology Information Literacy Standards have just become established recently (ACRL, 2010).…”

“…As far as we know, there is no standardized Psychology-specific information literacy test publicly available for which psychometric properties have been reported. Thaxton et al (2004) mentioned that an evaluation instrument has been used to evaluate the information literacy training; however, neither the instrument nor its psychometric properties are reported. Another study evaluated an information literacy training for Psychology students by asking students to prepare a literature search plan (Larkin and Pines, 2005).…”