Evaluating psychology students' library skills and experiences

Extensive engagement with current academic sources is expected of all psychology undergraduates. Thirty-eight undergraduate psychology students took part in a series of focus group discussions of their information-searching experiences and skills. The majority of students had not been required to engage with any form of information searching while studying at pre-degree level and were daunted by the sheer scale and complexity of the resources available in higher education. Following consideration of the issues raised by students in the discussions, a series of recommendations is presented to facilitate the transition into higher education and to enhance the library skills of psychology students.