The purpose of the assessment is to see if a library intervention has an impact on the quality of resources students utilize for a BIO 156 public health project.
Introductory Biology for Allied Health (BIO156) serves a broad student population, including many who wish to pursue careers in nursing. The majority of our introductory biology students have no background in biology and often have only a minimal understanding of allied health-related career paths. Furthermore, allied health careers are knowledge- and data-driven fields, and introductory biology students have little to no exposure as to how to source credible, peer-reviewed scientific information.
In an effort to address this shortfall students in BIO 156 face-to-face courses are assigned to create a public health campaign. A foundational part of the campaign requires students to compile appropriate citations, both to scaffold and support knowledge building and, later in the project, to aid reflection writing and public presentations.
It is important that students utilize credible resources, understand how to evaluate information and know where to find it. Locating resources through the library is an effective and efficient way of locating credible information. Allied health students need to be familiar with discipline-specific resources and how to navigate them.
We would like to see an increase in the number of library resources students use in their project and determine if a library intervention has an impact on the quality of resources students utilize.
In Fall 2024, after the campaign projects were completed, the library conducted a citation analysis of the annotated bibliographies. This involved categorizing citations by library (popular and scholarly) or non-library resources (websites). This semester did not have a library intervention.
In contrast, early in the Spring 2025 semester, for the same assignment, the library was invited into the classroom and reviewed with students specific tailored resources prior to the students starting their citation searches.
During the visits, the library showed relevant databases for the project. Among them were, Gale Health and Wellness, Nursing and Allied Health Reference Source and Opposing Viewpoints. The visit consisted of an introduction to library services, a demonstration of the databases and practice searches with a worksheet.
When the project was completed, a citation analysis was conducted on the annotated bibliographies.
Data from the Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 semesters were compared.
Fall 2024
No library intervention
The majority of resources utilized were from websites (88.8%). Although these were mostly government, medical center and university sites (51/89), it would be preferable to see a higher percentage of library resources (6.7%).
Spring 2025
With a library intervention
The majority of the resources were from the library databases (83.4%). The websites were from scholarly sites (5/60).
There was an increase of 76.7% in the number of library resources utilized between the Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 semester. The data gathered suggests that library intervention does have a positive impact on the quality of the resources students utilized for this project.