TEACHING A SYSTEMATIC SEARCH STRATEGY IMPROVES LITERATURE RETRIEVAL SKILLS OF PHARMACY STUDENTS

The present investigation tested a lecture/computerized demonstration of a systematic approach to computerized literature retrieval. Forty-e ight students in their third professional year who had been taught how to use OVID (version 3.0) in a one hour class, were tested on their a bility to construct search strategies using a paper/pencil examination . Results of the pretest demonstrated that students were able to defin e Boolean operators but were unable to use them in constructing search strategies. After a lecture and computerized demonstration of search strategies was presented, homework using OVID was assigned. A paper/pe ncil posttest was given after the homework was returned and discussed. The posttest showed a statistically significant increase in scores (P <0.001). The importance of improving pharmacy students' literature ret rieval skills and having this level of training early in their curricu lum is discussed.