CREATING INFORMATION
LITERACY COMPETENCIES FOR
PSYCHOLOGY UNDERGRADUATES

I’m Erik Christiansen
Contact Info
Assistant Professor/Librarian
Mount Royal University, Calgary
Emails: echristiansen@mtroyal.ca
info@erikchristiansen.net
Phone: (403) 440-5168
Twitter: @eriksation
Website: erikchristiansen.net
Blog: tech-bytes.net

1
MY BACKGROUND AND
INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN
and what it means for
library instruction

UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA – FACULTY OF EDUCATION

(Edmonton River Valley: CC Image by Erik Christiansen)

▪ Instructional design projects
▪ Managed faculty research centre
▪ Maker days / EdTech support

TECHNOLOGIES IN EDUCATION DEPT. – ID PROJECTS

(CC0 image by brendageiss on Pixabay)

▪ Pharmacy Doctorate online program
▪ Dentistry Program (F2F)
▪ Courses and assignments in Faculty of Education

INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN APPROACHES

(CC0 image by rawpixel on Pixabay)

ADDIE

SAM

AGILE

• Analysis

Successive
Approximation Model

Align, get set,
iterate and
implement, leverage,
and evaluate

• Design
• Development
• Implementation
• Evaluation

LIBRARIANS AND IL INSTRUCTION AT MRU

(RLLC Library Classroom A: CC Image by Erik Christiansen)

2
MOUNT ROYAL’S PSYCHOLOGY
PROGRAM

Undergraduate program
▪ Major
▪ Minor
▪ Honours option
▪ Approx. 32 faculty
including contract

(CC0 image by GDJ on Pixabay)

4
OUR PROJECT
Charting new territory at MRU

RESEARCH PROBLEM / QUESTION
Collaborative project between myself and the incoming
Psychology program Chair, Professor Nancy Ogden

Problem

▪ Large variance of IL competencies among psyc
students at every year in the program

Question

▪ How much do students retain from previous
sessions?

▪ How could we create IL competencies for psyc at
MRU?

RESEARCH PROCESS

Survey students about IL
competencies

Code responses and categorize
by year / course

Compare data to IL frameworks to
inform creation of competencies

(CC0 image by RobinHiggins on Pixabay)

CHALLENGES OF ONE-SHOT INSTRUCTION
Tracking students
Class perquisites
Psyc majors vs non-psyc majors
Student exposure

THREE QUESTIONS FOR STUDENTS – SHORT ANSWER

1

2

3

What are some
skills/concepts
that you remember
from a previous
library session?
Try and be as
specific as
possible

What new
skills/concepts
did you learn
from today’s
library session?
(please state one
or more concepts
learned)

Are there
skills/concepts
you wanted to
learn at this
session that we
didn’t cover?

SCAFFOLDING IL INSTRUCTION

Photo by 
  on Unsplash

5. MOVING FORWARD

Publish data & strategy
Get buy-in from faculty
Revisit competencies
down the road

Thanks!

ANY QUESTIONS?
Emails: echristiansen@mtroyal.ca
info@erikchristiansen.net
Phone: (403) 440-5168
Twitter: @eriksation
Website: erikchristiansen.net
Blog: tech-bytes.net

References
An introduction to SAM for instructional designers. (n.d.). ELearning Heroes. Retrieved from
https://community.articulate.com/articles/an-introduction-to-samfor-instructional-designers
Gutierrez, K. (2018, May 18). A quick guide to four instructional
design models. Shift. Retrieved from
https://www.shiftelearning.com/blog/top-instructional-designmodels-explained
Instructional design models. (n.d.). Instructional Design Central.
Retrieved from
https://www.instructionaldesigncentral.com/instructionaldesignmode
ls

CREDITS
Special thanks to all the people who made and released
these awesome resources for free:
▪ Presentation template by SlidesCarnival
▪ Photographs by Unsplash

For an editable version of this document, please contact Erik Christiansen using
the link below.
Website: https://erikchristiansen.net/contact/