Closing the loop: The use of student feedback in library information literacy instruction

In academic libraries we invest a lot of our time in delivering face-to-face and online information literacy sessions. These are often one-off sessions and we never see the students again. It‟s often hard to tell whether they are absorbing all the information and successfully applying the search skills
we teach. According to the literature, techniques such as formative assessment and feedback are essential steps in the learning process. But these important steps are often missing from information literacy instruction due to lack of librarian awareness, faculty support, time constraints and the effort involved.

This paper will explore the author's experiences delivering a feedback session to a group of first year medical students. Following a series of introductory library instruction classes, students began researching their first essay. Students were required to submit a document detailing their search strategy along with their essay. These were collected and analysed by the author and a follow-up session delivered in which students received constructive feedback. The benefits of such a session for both students and the library staff involved will be described. The author also discovered some interesting trends relating to the students‟ information seeking behaviour which will be discussed.