| Summary: | 碩士 === 輔仁大學 === 圖書資訊學系 === 90 === Introduction:
In the age of rapid development of medical technology and explosion of medical information, doctors not only need to keep building up their medical knowledge but also have to be aware of the changes of economy, society, medical treatment system and the relation between them and patients. In order to meet these changes, Problem-Based Learning (PBL), a new learning method for educating doctors-to-be, is becoming a mainstream in the education of medical science. PBL is on the basis of clinical cases. Medical students are required to learn new knowledge to solve the problems they face by the ways of clarifying questions, collecting relative information, applying and presenting information to the cases and finally evaluating all aspects comprehensively. In this process, the skills medical students use are called Big Six Skills in terms of Information Literacy, important to strengthen information capacity of medical students.
The purpose of this study is to discuss the information literacy of students conducting PBL courses and their usage of library services. Moreover, their opinions and suggestions about the support for PBL courses from the Library at National Yang-Ming University are collected. This study is a great contribution to Yang-Ming and the Library at Yang-Ming University in the aspect of management. Hopefully, this study will be helpful for other medical schools, which are going to run the PBL courses.
Methods:
This study was conducted by means of literature analysis and interviews. The subjects of this study were limited to 120 students who are going to be the 4th-year medical students in 2001. Then, the interviews were carried out among 24 students during the time from December 2000 to January 2001.
Conclusion:
1.Medical students are positive to PBL and all of them believe
the learning process would be very useful to their future
career.
2.For medical students, the most difficult steps in the PBL
process are collecting and applying information to the
problems they have; on the contrary, the parts of presenting
information and of clarifying questions are the easiest ones.
In addition, they think that lack of time is a big hinder to
PBL.
3.Textbooks are the first type of resources they use to find
out answers, databases, Internet resources and journals are
next common types. Besides, discussing with classmates or
asking chief residents for advices is also a good way for
them to get answers.
4.PBL courses indeed increase students’ interest in using
library services to collect the information they need. The
frequencies of using information retrieval and reference
services are increasing. However, students are not familiar
with some learning resources, so the library should consider
to undertake more library education courses to help them.
5.Information literacy can be regarded as one of the basic
skills for medical students and PBL can help them to improve
their skills.
6.Providing various resources would be a key point to make PBL
successful.
7.Library Instruction could help medical students improve their
information skills.
8.Teaching hospitals with abundant clinical information would
be a good place for medical students to get the much-needed
information. Moreover, the libraries with clinical medical
collection in the hospitals are of great help.
9.University libraries play an important role for PBL.
Libraries must be well-prepared on all aspects, such as
collection development, space, equipment and library
education, in order to meet the challenges PBL brings.
10.PBL would still be a main trend in the future.
Suggestions:
To medical schools and the field of medicine:
1.Medical schools should draw up a good plan for PBL in order
to provide a good learning environment for medical students.
2.Medical students should not ignore the importance of library
instruction because it would be good for their information
literacy.
3.The cooperation between teachers from medical schools and
librarians is necessary. The Library should support all
information for PBL and teachers should encourage students to
join library education courses in order to learn how to
search for information to solve problems.
4.For the purpose of convenience, PBL classrooms should be
located near a library, so students can use the library for
their self-study.
5.The publication of a Chinese-English dictionary of medical
science is necessary.
To libraries:
1.Collecting more clinical resources in terms of quality and
quantity.
2.Expanding the library space and equipment for users’ use.
3.Increasing the number of librarians and enhancing their
abilities, so that they can help PBL courses by instructing
students how to use the library.
4.Getting more financial support and using money wisely.
5.Enhancing the cooperation between the library at the school
and the library at the teaching hospital.
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