Managing information for capstone engineering projects

Engineering students have strong technical skills but may not have had the opportunity to develop research skills during their course. Information retrieval skills are scaffolded throughout the engineering program, but it is not until the capstone project year that students are confronted with the challenge of finding and collecting relevant references and citing these in a consistent and appropriate referencing style. This study investigates capstone students' perceptions about their own referencing skills. The results will inform future approaches to teaching information literacy skills to capstone students in mechanical engineering. This study explores the research question: how does class use of bibliographic software and mode of instruction affect students' perception of their ability to access, manage, and integrate information into written research reports? Collaboration between a senior engineering lecturer and a liaison librarian resulted in a new teaching practice. In the early weeks of the semester during a large lecture information sources and access to databases were demonstrated. This was followed by small hands-on computer based tutorials introducing students to library databases and integrated bibliographic software. Seventy-four students from mechanical engineering were surveyed before the start, and at the end of the small group training sessions. The change in students' perceptions regarding their ability to manage information was measured by analysing four Likert type survey questions, including two free-form responses. Analysis of the data yielded a positive response by students to small group training for enhancing their database retrieval and integrative bibliographic software skills. Qualitative results indicated that the students' confidence in creating in-text citations and references would be increased; the quality of students' reference list would be improved; and consequently an increase in their tendency to use the software. This study found that students preferred small group hands-on training to improve their writing and research skills. They indicated that they would prefer exposure to information retrieval and management activities using bibliographic software earlier in their academic career. Furthermore, to successfully enhance information management skills, students preferred scaffolding throughout the course as well as targeted intervention. This was achieved by collaboration between an engineering academic and an engineering faculty librarian.