Presented at LISDIS 2016, Saturday 6 November 2016 at UCL

1. Jane Morgan-Daniel
@JMorganDaniel
The Information Needs of Occupational
Therapy Students: A Case Study

2. Choosing the topic
What is an OT?
Methodology
Data collection
Data analysis
Findings
Lessons learned
Overview

3. Why information needs?
- What users say they need vs
what we think they need
- Meeting users’ changing
expectations
- User-oriented & evidence-
based service development
- Innovative responses to
internal & external change
Choosing the topic…

4. Why OT students?
- Personal & professional
connection to the topic
- Occupational Therapy is a
relatively new profession
- 31 British universities now
offer OT degree courses
- Increased government
support for student OTs
- Literature gap
Choosing the topic…

5. Final research question
What are the information needs of Occupational
Therapy students and how do these needs
contribute to library use and non-use?

6. What’s an Occupational Therapist?

7. Research
objectives
Ascertain OT students’
motivators for
information-seeking
Determine which
information sources are
used and why
Establish the barriers
inhibiting the
satisfaction of
information needs

8. Methodology
Systems theory
- Meaning can be objectively
determined
- An information need is a
rational decision that a piece
of information is required to
solve a problem
- Information needs are best
met through efficient
Information Retrieval systems
Which research tradition?

9. Methodology
User-centred
- Meaning is influenced by
personality, demographic
background & occupation
- An information need is
subjective & contextual
- Information needs are best
met through understanding
users’ perceptions of reality
within a specific setting
Which research tradition?

10. Methodology
Case study
- In depth exploration of local
perceptions
- Intensive examination of
contextual relationships
between the occupational
environment & students’
information needs
- Detection of associative
patterns
Research strategy

11. Methodology
- Non-probability purposive
sampling
- Inclusion criteria: location,
profession, specialisation,
career stage, pattern of
learning
- Key informant encouraged
faculty collaboration
- One institutional case
- Final sample of 27 students
Sampling procedure

12. Methodology Research design
Mixed methods
Qualitative
- Examination of perceptions,
opinions & attitudes
- Unanticipated themes arose
inductively
Quantitative
- Illuminated patterns within
the qualitative data
- Enabled theory-building

13. Data collection
- Self-completion questionnaire
- Open and closed questions
- Administered via email by a
faculty member
- Questionnaires were returned
as an email attachment
- Data was copied into Excel
and anonymised

14. What information services
would your ideal library
provide?
How do you evaluate
whether research evidence
is useful for a specific
patient case?
While on placement, what
clinical tasks prompt you to
look for information?
While on placement, what
non-clinical tasks prompt
you to look for information?
Open questions

15. On placement, have you
looked for information to
help with…
When writing academic
assignments, have you
looked for information to
help with…
On placement, who are you
likely to approach with a
question about patient
care…
Closed questions
When researching a clinical
question, do you use any of
the following
point-of-care tools…

16. Data analysis
Thematic analysis (qualitative data)
Non-parametric descriptive analysis
(quantitative data)

17. Findings
Objective one
Academic assignments, EBP,
developing workplace skills
Objective two
Clinical colleagues, textbooks,
search engines, e-journals,
bibliographic databases
Objective three
Training gaps, no awareness,
librarians’ limited knowledge of
OT, perceived inaccessibility &
unavailability of resources

18. Recommendations
- Increase awareness of
Occupational Therapy as a
distinct profession
- Extend library opening hours
- Offer regular user training
- Improve availability &
accessibility of OT related
print & e-resources
- Targeted publicity of relevant
library services & resources

19. Lessons learned

20. Information needs case
studies are a manageable,
useful and enjoyable topic
for a dissertation.