Abstract
Introduction: The aim of this study is to compare the peer tutor and librarian feedback on second year medical students’ literature search skills as part of a research course at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
 Methods: Student peer tutors and medical librarians each assessed a sample of literature searches for a culminating project. Two separate student cohorts were evaluated, and the marked rubrics were compared.
 Students also participated in focus groups. An online survey was sent to a third cohort of students who did not work with peer tutors, but instead met with librarians one-on-one to discuss their literature searches.
 Results: There was a measurable difference in the mark agreement between the peer tutors and the librarians. Unsurprisingly, librarians identified important errors and omissions unseen by the peer tutors. Peer tutors found the process of peer assessment very useful for their own learning and teaching skill development, however, the non-peer tutor students did not appreciate the value of this methodology. After peer tutoring was discontinued, the survey feedback was very positive about the value of the individual librarian consultations.
 Discussion: Medical students conducting a research project need to perform thorough literature searches. Although librarians found the consultations time-consuming, they found that the consultations improved searches more than having students receive help from peer tutors in the same class. The surveyed students were positive about the librarian consultation.
 
 Author keywords: Medical students; critical enquiry; student research; Peer tutoring; Assessment; Program evaluation; Librarian consultations; Information literacy; Focus groups, Online survey.
Highlights
The aim of this study is to compare the peer tutor and librarian feedback on second year medical students’ literature search skills as part of a research course at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Three methods were used to evaluate the student literature searching process (Figure 1): 1) Rubric comparison: librarians marked a selection of student assignments and compared the marks with the peer tutors’ marks; 2) Focus groups: facilitators twice asked students about the value of the peer tutoring process; 3) An online survey: students were asked to assess the value of librarian consultations
The Fall 2013 assignment rubric consisted of four sections background sources, PICO question, database selection, and search strategy
Summary
The aim of this study is to compare the peer tutor and librarian feedback on second year medical students’ literature search skills as part of a research course at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. The Critical Enquiry course acts as a capstone exercise for the development of the Scholar Role In this course, students become creators of medical information by developing a research project with a faculty tutor over the course of the year. For the Meds 2016 class (assessed in 2014), librarians and peer tutors agreed 100% on this portion of the rubric (Cohen’s Kappa: 1.0 – perfect agreement). With this result in mind, background sources were removed from the rubric the and following years. 4) Search strategy (including advanced features): In the Meds 2016 class, peer tutors gave all 50 papers the top level (3) mark, but librarians agreed in only four cases that the student deserved a level 3.
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