‘More than books’: use of a problem‐solving exercise to explore university library resources

Abstract

A problem‐solving exercise was used to develop transferable skills (time management, joint decision making, group work, task allocation and self‐assessment) through student exploration of university library materials. Emphasis was placed on materials useful for dissertation investigation. The exercise formed part of a second‐year research design course and the results are based on the responses of 65 undergraduates studying Human Geography. The students recognised that they had learned a great deal about the use of library resources through the exercise, but they were less convinced that transferable skills had been developed significantly. This was partly the result of difficulties that students had in recognising and measuring the development of transferable skills, highlighting the obstacles that may be encountered in devising exercises with the explicit objective of cultivating transferable skills. While being initially relatively cheap to design, the exercise was costly to implement in terms of staff input.

Keywords:

• Problem‐solving exercise
• library materials
• transferable skills
• dissertation investigations