Using ‘SurveyMonkey’ To Personalize Your Library Workshops

One of the recurring themes in the educational literature for academic librarians is ‘personalizing’ library workshops and making your sessions as relevant as possible. Today’s millennials are not unlike other adult learners in that they want to see the value in attending library workshops.

A good way to design workshops according to the learning needs of specific student groups is to do a ‘pre-test’ or pre-class survey of their existing library research skills. I decided to do this online using the free survey tool – Survey Monkey. I was amazed (and pleasantly surprised) just how easy it was to use Survey Monkey. Building the survey is a snap using pull down menus. (Here’s a copy of the survey.)

In working with the RSPT faculty, we came up with ten (10) questions to ask the students. The questions are directly related to the learning objectives for the workshop. Once all of the RSPT 526 students (~70 of them) answer the survey, I’ll be able to customize my library class. That’s something else SurveyMonkey does: it compiles all the results in graph form/ using percentages.

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For your own interest, here is the name of the session for the RSPT 526 students and the highlights of our January 12th session:

Library Resources and Search Strategies for
RSPT526 – Clinical Decision-Making II Students


Finding the Evidence in Physical Therapy

Outline of UBC Library Sessions and Assignment – Winter 2009

1. Learning objectives
..Identify the information you need to answer your research question
..Discover which databases to use for your systematic review
..Learn search techniques in different databases

2. Outcomes
..Frame research topic as an answerable question using the PICO format
..Explain choice of databases and describe their coverage
..Demonstrate effective search strategies and tools used

3. Scheduled library sessions:
January 12th – Hands-on workshops in Koerner Library’s computer lab, Rm217.
February 16th – Groups will meet Librarian, Dean Giustini, in Woodward Library’s McKechnie Rm to discuss search strategies and review concepts.