Professional collaboration in searching the evidence for an ill‐defined concept

Abstract

This paper outlines the inter-professional collaboration of the authors, a PhD student, his supervisor and an information professional, to systematically search the literature for an ill-defined concept. The research question posed for the scoping literature review indicated that the topic, the subjective socio-economic status and health of adults with intellectual disabilities, was rare. The need for a methodological search process was therefore identified and successfully carried out. The paper presents an analysis of the processes and the collaboration involved in developing a successful search strategy. The resulting transformative learning by the researcher of the professional practice of the information specialist illuminates their facilitating and supportive role in advancing health related research. F.J.

Search Club: Using peer support to develop search skills and share knowledge in a specialist NHS team

“…The benefits of multi-professional search collaboration have been identified by McMahon et al (2018) who outline the joint efforts of a PHD student, their supervisor, and an information professional to systematically search the literature for an ill-defined concept. The authors describe the transformative learning process for the researcher in a collaborative multi-professional search exercise in which their understanding of information science was deepened (McMahon et al, 2018). Within-team mentoring programs have also been trialled by Jones et al (2020) as part of their quality improvement program.…”