Overcoming the barriers to the use of journal articles within the geosciences

Abstract

Journal articles offer students an invaluable insight into current research and active debates. However, students are reluctant to engage with journals, and citation analyses suggest that their use is declining in favour of more accessible sources such as the internet.This project examined barriers to student engagement with journal literature and the extent to which these can be overcome by additional training. A questionnaire survey revealed various barriers including the complex content, the difficulty of finding relevant articles, the associated time commitment, and access problems. To address these barriers, two interventions were implemented: a detailed guide on how to find relevant literature; and tutorial sessions at which set reading was discussed. Citation analysis of pre- and post-intervention coursework indicated a significant increase in the use of journal articles. A focus group confirmed the value of the interventions and provided feedback that has informed a series of recommendations.

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No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 5 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.