Information Literacy for Teaching and Learning
A Workshop for Faculty and Librarians
Project Evaluation
In the Physician Assistant curriculum, the course PA551 Managing Medical Information: Biostatistics was designed to acquaint the student with the complexities of searching and reviewing the medical literature. My goal with this course was to emphasize these skills in the context of answering practice-based questions encountered in day-to-day clinician/patient interactions. It was with this goal in mind that Jennifer McCabe and I started the process of developing the assignment for this workshop. Using the skills, I, in fact, developed two assignments that were implemented when this course was taught in the Fall 2006 semester.
In Assignment 1 the students were split into small groups. Each group was given a short clinical scenario. In Phase I on the assignment, the group developed a set of 10 clinical questions and identified the information source most suitable for answering these questions. This was presented to the class as a whole and with input from the class; one question that could best be answered with a literature search was chosen and fine-tuned. The group returned in Phase II and presented the search strategy and 20 relevant articles. These were again presented to the class and three articles where chosen for in-depth review. In Phase III the group presented an analysis of these articles and how they contributed to formulating an answer to the clinical question. In Phase IV each member of the group individually submitted a written summary of this analysis.
Assignment 2 was similar but more directed in focus. Two clinical scenarios were given to class ending in a question about a controversial and/or complex treatment decision. The class was split in half with one group to argue in favor and one against the recommendation. The groups submitted an annotated bibliography that was shared with the opposing group. In the second phase of the project, each group developed a PowerPoint presentation summarizing the literature information in support of their position. In the final phase of this project each member of the class submitted a written argument with a decision about the controversial recommendation utilizing the information presented in class. They were not required to remain with the position to which they were initially assigned.
While I do not have any quantitative data to support my viewpoint on the effectiveness of these assignments in keeping with my learning objectives of the course, the students performed well within the grading rubic for the assignments developed as part of the workshop. In addition they incorporated information from didactic lectures from other portions of the course into their verbal and written presentations. In addition, I also observed a general improvement in the quality of articles submitted as a requirement for a clinical problem solving series that is also a portion of this course, although these exercises were not specifically designed with this objective in mind. All in all, I am very pleased with the impact of these assignments and their impact on my educational objectives for this course.
David S. Knitter, MD