By: Christine Bruce, PhD Thesis, 1996, University of New England, Armidale.
Information literacy: a phenomenography examines the varying experience of information literacy amongst higher educators and proposes a relational model of information literacy as an alternative to the behavioural model that dominates information literacy education and research. After establishing the importance of information literacy in higher education, the metaphor of an information literacy wheel is used to examine problems associated with the behavioural model and to propose the adoption of a relational approach. The three spokes of the wheel analysed are descriptions of information literacy, information literacy education and research.
Following discussion of these three aspects are details of an empirical study into information users' conceptions of information literacy. The study was conducted to form an initial hub for the relational information literacy wheel - a detailed picture of the different ways in which information literacy is experienced, or conceived amongst a group of experienced information users, in this case higher educators. The resulting conceptions, represented by `categories' describing them, provide a picture of the phenomenon of information literacy, that is a picture of information literacy as it appears to people. This picture becomes the centrepiece of the relational information literacy wheel, in the same way that lists of attributes are central to the behavioural model.
This new picture of information literacy was obtained using a phenomenographic research approach. In using this approach the study continued a tradition of merging information needs and uses and educational research. Data gathered from lecturers, librarians, counsellors and staff developers were subjected to an iterative analysis resulting in categories of description representing different conceptions of information literacy. Each category is distinguished by a particular way of focussing on the world which correlates with a particular meaning associated with information literacy. The categories represent people's subjective experience of different parts of the phenomenon which are logically related. These relationships are graphically represented in an outcome space.
The picture of information literacy derived from examining variation in users' conceptions provides a deeper understanding of the phenomenon and completes the proposed relational model. The outcomes also pave the way for new approaches to information literacy education and research.
Keywords: Information literacy, conceptions of; higher education; phenomenography; information users.
1 Towards an alternative model for information literacy >1-1
Why has the idea of information literacy taken root? 1-2
The rise and spread of the information literacy movement 1-5
Information literacy related challenges to higher education 1-10
Information literacy under scrutiny 1-13
What was the research problem? 1-17
Towards a relational model of information literacy 1-19
Establishing the boundaries of the study 1-21
Organisation of the thesis 1-23
2 Descriptions of information literacy 2-1
Conceptual influences on information literacy 2-2
Varying descriptions of information literacy 2-9
Towards an alternate approach to describing information literacy:
from attributes to conceptions 2-21
3 Information literacy education 3-1
Precursors to information literacy education 3-2
Contemporary approaches to information literacy education 3-6
Curriculum models for information literacy education 3-8
Towards an alternative approach to information literacy education:
from skills, knowledge and attributes to changing conceptions 3-19
4 Information literacy research 4-1
Background to information literacy research 4-2
Research into information literacy 4-6
Research directions recommended in the literature 4-12
Towards an alternate research approach:
from describing attributes to describing people's conceptions 4-15
A preliminary research agenda based on the relational approach 4-21
5 Thematising conceptions of information literacy 5-1
Phenomenography: a research approach for understanding information literacy 5-2
Conceptions and phenomena: the knowledge interests of phenomenography 5-4
Categories of description and outcome spaces:
findings of a phenomenographic study 5-8
Thematising higher educators' conceptions of information literacy 5-10
The pilot study 5-10
The participants: higher educators 5-13
Designing the data gathering instruments 5-17
Data gathering: conducting interviews and gathering written data 5-19
Analysis: finding and describing conceptions of information literacy 5-26
Trustworthiness of the outcomes 5-31
6 Descriptions of conceptions of information literacy 6-1
The outcome space 6-3
The categories of description 6-9
Category one: the information technology conception 6-9
Category two: the information sources conception 6-15
Category three: the information process conception 6-24
Category four: the information control conception 6-29
Category five: the knowledge construction conception 6-36
Category six: the knowledge extension conception 6-43
Category seven: the wisdom conception 6-49
7 New directions for information literacy 7-1
How may the outcomes be interpreted? 7-3
How does this study contribute to our understanding of information literacy? 7-8
How does this study contribute to information literacy education? 7-16
How does this study contribute to information literacy research? 7-29
References REF-1
Appendices APP-1
Appendix 1: Letter and conference paper sent to interviewees APP-1
List of Figures
Figure 1.1a Dominant paradigms informing understandings of information literacy 1-20
Figure 1.1b Alternative paradigms informing understandings of information literacy 1-20
Figure 2.1 Concepts influencing and coexisting with information literacy 2-2
Figure 2.2 Arrowgraph showing proximity of interpretations of information literacy
to related concepts 2-12
Figure 2.3a Describing information literacy as attributes of people 2-21
Figure 2.3b Describing information literacy in terms of people's conceptions 2-21
Figure 3.1a Teaching and learning as acquiring attributes of information literacy 3-20
Figure 3.1b Teaching and learning as changing conceptions 3-20
Figure 4.1a Researching information literacy as attributes of people 4-15
Figure 4.1b Researching information literacy in terms of people's conceptions 4-15
Figure 5.1 Worksheet used for gathering written responses at an information
literacy seminar 5-11
Figure 5.2 Electronic mail message sent to colleagues who had agreed to correspond 5-13
Figure 5.3 Worksheet used for the collection of written data 5-20
Figure 5.4 Handout given to interviewees 5-22
Figure 6.1 Outcome space depicting meaning structures 6-4
Figure 6.2 Outcome space based on structures of awareness 6-6
Figure 6.3 The structure of awareness as experienced in the information technology conception 6-10
Figure 6.4 The structure of awareness as experienced in the information sources conception 6-16
Figure 6.5 The structure of awareness as experienced in the information process conception 6-25
Figure 6.6 The structure of awareness as experienced in the information control conception 6-29
Figure 6.7 The structure of awareness as experienced in the knowledge construction conception 6-36
Figure 6.8 The structure of awareness as experienced in the knowledge extension conception 6-44
Figure 6.9 The structure of awareness as experienced in the wisdom conception 6-50
Figure 7.1a Information literacy - a behavioural model 7-2
Figure 7.1b Information literacy - a relational model 7-2
Figure 7.2 Curricula clustering around categories one and two 7-25
List of Tables
Table 1.1 Contrasting characteristics of alternative pictures of information literacy 1-17
Table 4.1 Paradigms in information needs and uses research I 4-3
Table 4.2 Paradigms in information needs and uses research II 4-19
Table 5.1 Participants' universities 5-14
Table 5.2 Gender and discipline backgrounds of interviewees 5-14
Table 5.3 Interviewees by occupation 5-15
Table 5.4 Participant profile in relation to data gathering strategies 5-16
Table 6.1 The varying ways in which information appears 6-7