Creating Instructionally Robust Psychology Research Guides: Project Overview

The .pdf version of the full poster presented at ACRL 2013:

THE RESEARCH QUESTION: 

How can librarians take capitalize on the multimedia potential of online research guides to make research guides that promote and support information literacy and instruction?

METHODS:

After surveying the web sites of all Association of American Universities library websites, researches concluded that a total of 56 schools out of 62 had online psychology research guides (this inventory did not include course guides). Of the schools that did have psychology guides, researchers concluded that 36 of these guides contained instructional content (defined as help content related to resources and tools beyond brief descriptions).

Clearly, online reseearch guides provide librarians with a platform for delivering instructional content in a variety of formats. Researchers sought to devise a system whereby librarians could more mindfully inject instrucitonal content into psychology guides to support myriad learning goals and information literacy competencies. In doing so, they decided to look to the standards defined by the profession.

THE ANSWER: 

Let outcomes guide content. 

Using standard 2.2 of the Psychology Information Literacy Standards, researchers mapped information literacy outcomes to guide content areas and created a template for building instructionally robust psychology research guides. This research guide contains examples of a page from a research guide devoid of instructinal content and a page from a research guide incorporating high degrees of instructional content.