Using Mentimeter to gauge and engage science students in information skills sessions

Abstract

The perennial problem of gathering student feedback and assessing student learning lurk in every librarian’s information literacy (IL) programme. A number of interactive polling tools such as Socrative and Poll Everywhere have been used to great effect in IL sessions to gauge the students’ engagement with the session and also obtain feedback. Another tool, Mentimeter, currently being used at Royal Holloway, University of London, has not seen as much limelight as its peers in literature on polling and student engagement. Mentimeter allows you to create your own questions and lets students vote or answer questions in a variety of ways encouraging their participation in the IL session. Its functionality and ease with which it can be used and embeds into LibGuides make it a tool worth the consideration of librarians involved in delivering information skills sessions. This digital poster will demonstrate how Mentimeter has easily been inserted into IL sessions at Royal Holloway to poll students’ current search strategies and what resources they currently use, and from this information, tailor their teaching to plug gaps in students’ search strategies and knowledge of what resources are available to them. In doing this, we have been able to illustrate to Science faculty students the value of information literacy skills. Mentimeter has been used in almost all Science training sessions for undergraduates this year so far (2016-17) as a way to inform the instructor what should be focused on.