Table 2.
Competencies with implicit or explicit information skills and behaviors
| College | Competency | Coded phrase | Active verbs from coded phrase | Reason for code | Analytic coding of verbs | Implicit/explicit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| College of Medicine (Medicine) | Develop contextual and individualized diagnostic and treatment plans based on collected clinical information | Develop…plans… based on collected clinical information | Based | This involves an analysis of the collected information to formulate treatment plans; the analysis of the information is an example of information skills and behaviors. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| Medicine | Interpret the results of commonly used laboratory and radiologic studies | Interpret the results of… | Interpret | This is an evaluation of collected data; the interpretation of data is an example of information skills and behaviors. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| Medicine | Maintain accurate medical records | Maintain accurate medical records | Record | Maintaining accurate medical records involves evaluating the information on hand to make sure it is correct, then seeking out new information if it is not. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| Medicine | Properly utilize clinical, laboratory, radiologic, and pathological examinations to diagnose and treat common maladies | Properly utilize clinical, laboratory, radiologic, and pathological examinations… | Utilize | The phrase is talking about properly using various examinations for the ultimate purpose of making a diagnosis. This would mean the given information needs to be evaluated and contextualized within current research. | Searching, evaluating, other | Implicit |
| Medicine | Select, appraise, and utilize evidence from scientific studies related to clinical questions and patients' health problems | Select, appraise, and utilize evidence from scientific studies | Select, appraise, utilize | The selecting, appraising, and utilizing evidence from scientific studies is about information skills and behaviors. This includes three elements of information skills and behaviors: searching for information, evaluating any information, and then applying it. | Searching, evaluating, other | Explicit |
| Medicine | Utilize information resources and available data to support lifelong learning | Utilize information… | Utilize | This competency requires students to update their knowledge using information (lifelong learning). | Other | Explicit |
| College of Nursing (Nursing) | Analyze the links among practice, organizational, population, fiscal, and policy issues to advocate for improved patient outcomes. | Analyze the links among practice, organizational, population, fiscal, and policy issues… | Analyze | This is an evaluation of information from multiple sources to improve patient care. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| Nursing | Demonstrate advanced levels of clinical judgment, systems thinking, and accountability in designing, delivering, and evaluating evidence-based care to improve patient outcomes. | …Evaluating evidence-based care… | Evaluating | This is an evaluation of given information, both clinical and current research, for improving patient outcomes. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| Nursing | Design, implement, and evaluate therapeutic and preventative interventions based on nursing science, and other sciences and humanities. | …Evaluate therapeutic and preventative interventions… | Evaluate | This is an evaluation of scientific literature for application purposes. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| Nursing | Integrate organizational, client centered, and culturally centered approaches to plan, deliver and evaluate health care for individuals, families and populations. | …Evaluate health care for individuals, families and populations. | Evaluate | This is an evaluation of information to develop a treatment plan. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) | Construct an appropriate diagnostic plan, based upon their preliminary differential diagnosis list, and analyze the findings in order to reach a presumptive diagnosis of common medical conditions in common domestic species | …Analyze the findings… | Analyze | Analyzing clinical information includes contextualizing clinical data with current research. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| CVM | Evaluate risk factors for individual or groups of animals for medical conditions in common domestic species | Evaluate risk factors… | Evaluate | This is an evaluation of clinical information and relating it to current published reference values. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| CVM | Evaluate the scope of their personal and professional limits and appropriately judge when to seek professional advice, assistance, and support and manage a referral case | Evaluate the scope of their personal and professional limits… | Evaluate | This form of self-evaluation implies information-seeking behavior because professional limitations have published guidelines and expected behaviors that an individual must be able to compare to. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| CVM | Identify, review, and critically evaluate biomedical literature and apply it to the practice of contemporary, evidence-based veterinary medicine | …Critically evaluate biomedical literature… | Evaluate | This is an evaluation of scientific literature for application purposes. | Evaluating | Explicit |
| CVM | Recognize the need for sedation, anesthesia, and analgesia and evaluate the pertinent patient information in order to formulate an appropriate anesthesia protocol in common domestic species | …Evaluate the pertinent patient information…to… | Evaluate | This an evaluation of given information to develop appropriate protocols. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| CVM | Select appropriate surgical interventions, based upon the identification of pathologic conditions and the evaluation of patient conditions, to treat surgical problems in common domestic species | …Evaluation of patient conditions… | Evaluation | Identification of pathological conditions includes knowing about various types of pathological conditions and staying updated with the current literature as new ones are published about or new categorizations are developed. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy (Pharm) | Access, analyze, and interpret relevant resources to provide comprehensive drug information to patients and health care providers on the safe and effective use of medications | Access, analyze, and interpret relevant resources… | Access, analyze, interpret | This is an analysis of the given information, which is a hallmark of information-seeking behavior and the combination falls under searching (Access) and evaluation (Analyze/Interpret) of relevant sources | Searching, evaluating | Explicit |
| Pharm | Maintain professional competence by identifying and evaluating emerging issues, trends, products, and services that may impact patient and population outcomes, management of resources and medication use systems, disease prevention services and public health policy | Identifying and evaluating emerging issues, trends, products, and services… | Identify, evaluate | Both identifying and evaluating the emerging information is coded under information-seeking behavior. | Identifying, evaluating | Implicit |
| Pharm | Provide evidence-based care to populations through disease management programs and protocols that are derived from analysis of epidemiologic and pharmacoeconomic data, medication use criteria, medication use review, and risk reduction strategies | …Analysis of epidemiologic and pharmacoeconomic data, medication use criteria, medication use review, and risk reduction strategies | Analysis | This is an evaluation of information from multiple sources to provide evidence-based care. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| School of Public Health (PHEB) | Apply basic informatics techniques with vital statistics and public health records in the description of public health characteristics and in public health research and evaluation. | Apply basic informatics techniques with…statistics…and…records…in public health research and evaluation. | Evaluation | An inherent element of this competency is evaluating sources of information | Evaluating | Implicit |
| PHEB | Apply ethical principles to public health program planning, implementation and evaluation | Apply ethical principles to…evaluation | Apply, evaluation | This focuses on the ethical elements involved with creating and evaluating public health programming. The information skills and behaviors element is how ethics are a part of evaluating public health programming. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| PHEB | Apply evidence-based approaches in the development and evaluation of social and behavioral science interventions | Apply evidence-based approaches in the development and evaluation. | Apply, evaluation | This phrase is about using evidence-based approaches for interventions. The application falls in the evaluation element. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| PHEB | Apply the core functions of assessment, policy development, and assurance in the analysis of public health problems and their solutions | …The analysis of public health problems and their solutions | Analysis | This competency is about using various didactic elements to analyze public health problems and solutions. The analysis element is about evaluating problems and their solutions. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| PHEB | Describe steps and procedures for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health programs, policies, and interventions. | …Evaluation of public health programs | Evaluate | This element of the competency has to do with an evaluation of the given information; the intention is explaining how to evaluate specified information. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| PHEB | Describe the principles of program planning, development, management, and evaluation in public health initiatives | Describe… evaluation in public health initiatives | Evaluation | The evaluation of public health initiatives must be described; the information skills piece is about being able to evaluate public health initiatives. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| PHEB | Identify key sources of data for epidemiologic purposes | Identifying…data | Identify | This is about identifying different data for a specific purpose. | Identifying | Explicit |
| PHEB | Interpret results of statistical analyses found in public health studies | Interpret results… | Interpret | Interpreting results is the application of information for a purpose, which falls under evaluation in information-seeking behavior. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| PHEB | Draw appropriate inferences from epidemiologic data. | Draw appropriate inferences… | Inference | Drawing inferences from information is a type of information-seeking behavior. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| PHEB | Evaluate the strengths and limitations of epidemiologic reports. | Evaluate the strengths and limitations of epidemiologic reports | Evaluate | This is about evaluating the information in specific sources of data. | Evaluating | Implicit |
| PHEB | Identify critical stakeholders for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health programs, policies, and interventions | …Evaluation of… | Evaluate | This is about identifying the stakeholders necessary for developing and evaluating various types of interventions. Evaluating the various sources of data falls under information-seeking behaviors. | Evaluating | Implicit |
Curricular documents with competencies had either explicitly or implicitly stated information skills and behaviors. These competencies were coded, and the specific elements of information skills and behaviors identified, including the verbs used for analytic coding.