A Randomised Controlled Trial Comparing the Effect of E-learning, with a Taught Workshop, on the Knowledge and Search Skills of Health Professionals
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Objective - The aim of the trial was to establish whether there is a significant difference in terms of knowledge and skills, between self-directed learning using a web-based resource, compared with a classroom based interactive workshop, for teaching health professionals how to search. The outcomes measured were knowledge of databases and study designs, and search skills. Methods - The study design was a randomised controlled trial (RCT). 17 health professionals were randomised into one of two groups – one group (EG) received access to a search-skills web resource, and the other group received a search workshop (WG) taught by a librarian. Participants completed pre- and post-intervention tests involving multiple choice questions and practical searching using clinical scenarios.. Results - 9 WG and 6 EG participants completed both pre-and post-intervention tests. The test results were blindly marked using a score chart developed with two other librarians. For question formulation and devising a search strategy, all participants obtained a score that was the same or better after receiving the intervention (both WG and EG), but statistical analysis showed that the only significant outcomes were for the WG devising a search strategy (p=0.01) and preferring to search using MeSH after receiving the taught workshop (p=0.02). The Mann-Whitney test showed there were no significant differences in any of the outcomes (p>0.05), between the WG and the EG. The statistical analyses must be viewed with caution due to the small sample size. Conclusions - There were no significant differences in knowledge of databases and study design, or search skills, when the WG and the EG were compared. Although many participants obtained a score that was higher post-intervention, only devising a search strategy and preferring to search using MeSH were significant for the WG. The question of whether a taught workshop and an e-learning module are of equal effectiveness in teaching search skills, is an important one for health librarians involved in user education, and was a justifiable topic to propose and conduct research. The fact that the results are mainly inconclusive due to the small sample size is disappointing, but does not diminish the importance of conducting the study.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.006 | 0.016 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.006 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.005 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.023 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".