Information seeking and evaluation: a multi-institutional survey of veterinary students

Abstract

Objective: To practice evidence-based medicine, clinicians must be competent in information literacy (IL). Few studies acknowledge the critical role that reading strategies play in IL instruction and assessment of health professional students. The purpose of this study was to understand the information-seeking and evaluation behaviors of doctor of veterinary medicine (DVM) students in regard to scientific papers.Methods: The authors studied DVM student behaviors across eight programs in North America using a web-based survey of closed- and open-ended questions about finding and evaluating scientific papers, including a task to read a linked scientific paper and answer questions about it.Results: A total of 226 individuals responded to the survey. The sections of a scientific paper that were most commonly read were the abstract, introduction, and conclusions. Students who reported reading a higher proportion of scientific papers were more likely to feel confident in their abilities to interpret them. A third of respondents answered open-ended questions after the paper reading task. Respondents felt the least amount of confidence with one of the final steps of evidence-based medicine, that of interpreting the significance of the paper to apply it in veterinary medicine.Conclusions: DVM students may lack the skills needed to evaluate scientific literature and need more practice and feedback in evaluating and interpreting scientific papers. Librarians who support DVM students can (1) help DVM students to efficiently evaluate scientific literature, (2) seek training opportunities in alternative modes of teaching and learning IL skills, and (3) partner with veterinary faculty and clinicians to provide students with practice and feedback in information evaluation.

Veterinarian barriers to knowledge translation (KT) within the context of swine infectious disease research: an international survey of swine veterinarians

“…Consistent with previous surveys [ 36 , 53 , 65 ], the majority of respondents do not usually read methods sections of articles. By default then, it is reasonable to conclude that the majority also do not usually assess study validity, possibly also increasing the likelihood of assimilating biased information into practice.…”

“…Time is the most consistently reported KT barrier across all previous veterinarian surveys and a consistently reported obstacle to participation in CE/CPD [ 10 , 12 , 16 , 36 – 43 ]. Understandably then, time constrained swine veterinarians seek colleagues, may select citations by convenience [ 12 , 44 ], or seek narrative reviews for keeping up; with the latter two being at odds with the practice of EBM [ 45 – 49 ].…”

“…The substantial proportion of swine veterinarians reporting high levels of stress and limited efficiency with the process of keeping up is concerning. Veterinary student confidence to appraise research has been associated with KT process efficiency [ 36 ]. This was a similar finding of this study and we believe this is the first survey of working agri-food public health veterinarians associating individual efficiency and stress with the process of keeping current.…”

“…By default then, it is reasonable to conclude that the majority also do not usually assess study validity, possibly also increasing the likelihood of assimilating biased information into practice. Although not a finding of this survey, student avoidance of methods sections was attributed to low confidence in critical appraisal skills [ 36 ].…”

“…While veterinarians report interest in such training [ 65 , 72 ] emphasis on this approach might not be optimal for the profession. Training and maintenance of traditional EBM skills, through CE/CPD for example, while necessary and important, requires an investment of time, and considerable numerical literacy [ 16 , 36 , 73 – 76 ]. Opinions also differ on how to teach EBM/EBVM, and best methods for teaching are not clear [ 76 ].…”