Assessment of Library Instruction on Undergraduate Student Success in a Documents-Based Research Course: The Benefits of Librarian, Archivist, and Faculty Collaboration

Abstract

This article discusses a successful collaboration between multiple subject specialist librarians, the University Archivist and a faculty member teaching an undergraduate course in documents-based social science research. This collaborative partnership allowed for each subject specialist to expose students to specific information literacy skills they needed to be successful in their class. The authors used pre- and postassessments to gauge student comfort level in conducting library research, as well as a rubric to assess the annotated bibliography of a student’s final research paper. The data from these assessment tools are analyzed and the results discussed. The data indicates that students benefited from the specialized instruction they received.