Review Article
Information Literacies of PhD Students in the Health
Sciences: A Review of Scholarly Articles (2009 - 2018)
Elisabeth Nylander
Research Librarian
Jönköping University Library
Jönköping, Sweden
E-mail: elisabeth.nylander@ju.se
Margareta Hjort
Instruction Librarian
Jönköping University Library
Jönköping, Sweden
E-mail: margareta.hjort@ju.se
Received: 26 Aug. 2019 Accepted: 1 Nov. 2019
2020 Nylander and Hjort. This
is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons‐Attribution‐Noncommercial‐Share Alike License 4.0
International (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly attributed, not used for commercial
purposes, and, if transformed, the resulting work is redistributed under the
same or similar license to this one.
DOI: 10.18438/eblip29630
Acknowledgements
This project was made possible in part by the
Institute of Museum and Library Services (RE-95-17-0025-17). We thank the
Research Training Institute of the Medical Library Association for its
training, support, and encouragement to carry out this research. We thank our
Library Director Mattias Lorentzi for providing us
with the opportunity to conduct this project. We also thank Anna Abelsson and Thomas Mattsson for
comments on the manuscript.
Abstract
Objective – Doctoral studies offer a unique
phase in the development and legitimization of researchers, in which PhD
students shift from the consumption to the production of knowledge. If
librarians are to support this process in an evidence based
manner, it is essential to understand the distinct practices of this user
population. While recent reviews exist concerning the information behaviours of
graduate students and researchers, there is little knowledge synthesis focused
on the information literacies of PhD students in specific disciplines. The aim
of this article is to explore the depth and breadth of recent evidence which
describes the information literacies of students pursuing a doctoral degree in
the health sciences.
Methods – Strategic searches were performed
in databases, hand-searched key journals, and reference lists. Records were
screened independently by both authors based on pre-determined criteria.
General trends within the literature were mapped based on the extraction of the
following data: geographic location, population, study aims, and method of
investigation. Further analysis of the articles included charting the academic
disciplines represented, summarizing major findings related to PhD students in
health sciences, and which databases indexed the relevant articles.
Results – Many studies fail to treat doctoral
studies as a unique process. PhD students are often grouped together with other
graduate students or researchers. Studies tend to be based on small
populations, and the number of PhD students involved is either unclear or only
equals a few individuals within the entire group of study. In addition, of the
limited number of studies which focus exclusively on PhD students, few conduct
explicit examination of information practices in the health sciences. The
result is that this user group is underrepresented within recent journal
publications.
Conclusion – This review highlights the need for
more primary, in-depth research on the information literacies of PhD students
in the health sciences. In addition, librarians are encouraged to share their
knowledge in scholarly publications which can reach beyond their own
professional circles.
Introduction
A
practical objective of library and information science (LIS) is to investigate
the information practices of different groups in order to be able to invest in
appropriate information resources and services. Understanding the information
literacies of PhD students is of particular importance to academic libraries,
since these students are often present or future faculty, and librarians can
provide support in the transformation from students to scholars (Fleming-May
& Yuro, 2009).
Information Literacy – Debate and
Definitions
Information
literacy (IL) has traditionally been defined by organizations in terms of
explicit learning goals for the use of information. Several models for IL have
been put forth over the past few decades, including the recent Association of
College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL) “Framework for Information Literacy for
Higher Education”. This document represents an effort to shift from normative
standards to a more nuanced definition of IL as “the set of integrated
abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the
understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of
information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in
communities of learning” (American Library Association, 2015).
As a
research field, IL has been under development and debate for several decades (Bruce, 2000; Pinto, Cordón, & Díaz, 2010;
Tuominen, Savolainen, & Talja,
2005); however, it can be asserted that IL is now a well-established concept
within its own mature research domain (Bruce, 2016). For the purposes
of this review, the concept information
literacies is used in the plural form to denote
dynamic learning activities that take place through interactions within
specific social contexts. In other words, information skills evolve in domain
specific areas such as disciplines or communities of practice (Lave &
Wenger, 1991; Nicolini, Gherardi,
& Yanow, 2003). This
situated understanding of IL “calls for empirical research efforts to analyze
how specific communities use various conceptual, cultural, and technical tools
to access printed and digital documents and to evaluate and create knowledge”
(Tuominen et al., 2005, p. 342).
Information
Literacies of PhD Students
There
is a wealth of research regarding information practices within educational
settings, but few studies have concentrated on PhD students as a discrete
group. In a meta-synthesis of the literature on graduate students’
information-seeking behaviour, Catalano (2013) only found 11 studies published
between 1997 and 2012 that focus specifically on PhD students. These studies
typically center around efforts to improve library services, e.g., identifying
information source preferences or investigating research and writing processes
during a literature review. Catalano’s (2013) review considered graduate
students on both the master’s and doctoral level, and only a few patterns of
behaviour were pointed out as unique to PhD students. Like master’s students,
PhD students were found to begin their research on the Internet. However, PhD
students were also more inclined to consult their faculty advisors when seeking
information.
Spezi
(2016) augmented Catalano’s (2013) findings through a narrative review covering
the years 2010 – 2015, focusing on whether there has been a change in PhD
students’ information seeking behaviours due to developments in information and
communications technologies. Only a handful of the identified research looked
solely at PhD students, instead most studies grouped PhD students together with
other graduate students or with other researchers. Spezi’s
(2016) review confirms Catalano’s (2013) earlier observation that PhD students
are inclined to begin their searches on the Internet and that this is now an
established and recognized trend. At the same time, library e-resources are,
after “a period of disenchantment”, still useful enough to compete with web
searches. Spezi (2016) also points to the previously
documented importance of academic journals to PhD students during the research
process, and that more articles tend to be read in the medical and life
sciences. PhD students were also found to over-estimate their ability to search
for information effectively, e.g., constructing effective search strategies.
Disciplinary Differences and the Health
Sciences
In
LIS research, there has been a tendency to generalize about metadisciplines,
i.e., group fields into broad discipline categories such as science or the
humanities (Case & Given, 2016). Against this backdrop, a common assumption
is that scholars within the natural sciences mainly use journals and humanities
scholars mainly use archives and books. These generalizations “may be true as
they go, but they do not further our understanding of the important mechanisms
of information seeking, nor are they particularly useful in application, as in
designing university information systems to serve particular disciplines” (Case
& Given, 2016, p. 288). As noted previously, there is a strand of LIS
research which asserts the importance of the disciplinary context. Disciplines
have different research cultures and traditions (Talja,
Vakkari, Fry, & Wouters,
2007) and an “academic discipline ‘disciplines’ its members to behave in
certain ways” (Sundin, Limberg, & Lundh, 2008, p.
22). For this review, the health sciences as a
concept is defined as narrower than a metadiscipline
but wide enough as a field to encompass several smaller disciplines of science,
which focus on health or health care, e.g., medicine or nursing.
PhD
students are a unique library user group, marked by a period of transition.
They are not merely graduate students; they are researchers in training.
Academic disciplines provide the social contexts through which PhD students
learn what it means to be information literate in their fields. Although there
have been recent reviews about the information-seeking behaviour of PhD
students, there is little knowledge synthesis about these students that is
connected to the broader concept of information literacies or to the
discipline-specific culture of the health sciences.
The
aim of this article is therefore to explore the depth and breadth of research
in scholarly articles concerning the information literacies of PhD students
within the health sciences.
To
“identify the nature and extent of research evidence” and to provide “a
preliminary assessment of the potential size and scope of available research
literature” (Grant & Booth, 2009, p. 101), a review of scholarly articles
was conducted based on scoping review methodologies (Arksey & O'Malley,
2005; O’Brien et al., 2016; Peters et al., 2015).
This
review involved structured searches of subject-specific as well as
multidisciplinary databases for the years 2009 – 2018. This date range was
chosen in order to locate the most current publications available on the topic
of IL. While the phrase information literacy was introduced as early as
the 1970s (Zurkowski, 1974), it can be argued that IL
has only recently been established as a research domain (Bruce, 2000; Bruce, 2016).
Different databases were searched to identify the scope of the evidence,
i.e., not only what research is available but also where. LISA
(Library & Information Science Abstracts) was chosen to find research
within LIS and ERIC (Education Resource Information Center) for education.
CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature), MEDLINE, and
PsycINFO were used to broaden the search to encompass the health sciences.
Scopus was chosen in order to cover multidisciplinary publications. Search
strings were constructed using the individual databases’ thesauri in
combination with variations of the keywords doctoral
student and information literacy.
Searches were conducted in September 2018 and detailed documentation of the
strategies, including which database platforms were used, is provided in the
Appendix.
Through
a series of test searches, the following four journals were recognized as
particularly relevant for additional hand-searching: College & Research
Libraries, EBLIP (Evidence Based Library & Information Practice),
Journal of Academic Librarianship, and Journal of Information
Literacy.
The
inclusion criteria of this review are reflected within its search strategies
and screening criteria. It was limited to peer-reviewed journal articles that
report on empirical evidence written in English. This narrow focus was used to
identify publications that are commonly used and perhaps most valued by
professionals supporting PhD students within the health sciences, e.g.,
academic supervisors and medical or academic librarians. Commentaries and
essays were excluded, as were theses and dissertations, conference proceedings,
book chapters, and policy papers, since these documents tend to be secondary
sources rather than primary studies. Review articles were also excluded, but
only after consulting the reference lists of these articles to identify
additional original studies.
The
included research articles could employ qualitative, quantitative, or mixed
methods. The information literacies of PhD students could be examined from the
perspective of the PhD students themselves or from other groups involved in
doctoral studies, such as thesis supervisors or librarians. However, the
articles had to clearly identify and examine PhD students within the health
sciences as a distinct group.
Both
authors conducted the the literature search, screening, and data extraction.The
search results were imported into EndNote Desktop for de-duplication according
to a comprehensive and strategic method (Bramer, Giustini, De Jong, Holland, & Bekhuis,
2016) and then independently screened using Rayyan (Ouzzani,
Hammady, Fedorowicz, & Elmagarmid, 2016). Conflicting decisions were discussed in
order to reach consensus. The following data was charted from the included
studies: geographic location, population, aims, methodology, academic
disciplines represented, major findings related to health
sciences, and which databases indexed the relevant articles.
Results
Identification of Relevant Articles
An adapted version of the PRISMA flow diagram
(Moher, Liberati, Tetzlaff,
Altman, & Group, 2009) summarizes the search and screening process (Figure
1). The literature search identified 2,685 records and an additional 188
records were found through hand-searching. After duplicates were removed, the
titles and abstracts of the 2,317 remaining records were screened independently
by both authors.
Full-text was retrieved for 129 articles. Following
full-text screening, only seven articles (0.3% of the initial data set of 2,317
records) met the inclusion criteria.
Figure 1
Modified PRISMA diagram.
Indexing Practices
Table 1 shows which databases indexed the relevant
articles. The journals represented were mainly within LIS (six of the seven),
apart from one journal within education. None of the databases indexed all
seven articles, but all the articles were retrieved through Scopus, a
multidisciplinary database. LISA indexed all six LIS journals, but not the
education journal. In addition to the education journal, ERIC indexed two of
the six LIS journals. None of the articles were found in the databases covering
nursing or medical research, i.e., CINAHL and MEDLINE. However, PsycINFO
indexed the education journal and five of the six LIS journals.
Included Articles – Respective
Journals and Database Indexing
|
Article |
Published In |
CINAHL |
ERIC |
MEDLINE |
PsycINFO |
Scopus |
|
(Carpenter, 2012) |
Information Services & Use |
NO |
NO |
NO |
YES |
YES |
|
(Edwards & Jones, 2014) |
Evidence Based Library and Information Practice |
NO |
NO |
NO |
YES |
YES |
|
(Green, 2010) |
Journal of Academic Librarianship |
NO |
YES |
NO |
YES |
YES |
|
(Grigas, Juzeniene, &
Velickaite, 2017) |
Information Research |
NO |
YES |
NO |
NO |
YES |
|
(Ramlogan, 2014) |
Library Philosophy and Practice |
NO |
NO |
NO |
YES |
YES |
|
(Trafford & Leshem, 2009) |
Innovations in Education and Teaching
International |
NO |
YES |
NO |
YES |
YES |
|
(Warburton & Macauley, 2014) |
Australian Academic and Research Libraries |
NO |
NO |
NO |
YES |
YES |
The Nature of the Evidence
This
review revealed that the literature rarely treats doctoral studies as a unique
process. PhD students are usually grouped together with other graduate students
or researchers (65 articles with an unclear population, 30 articles with PhD
students named but not the focus). Studies tend to be based on small
populations, and the number of PhD students involved is either unclear or only
equals a few individuals within the entire group of study. Few studies were
about PhD students in the health sciences (27 with unclear or wrong
discipline). In other words, we assert that PhD students in the health sciences
are underrepresented in recent scholarly journals.
Only
seven articles met the inclusion criteria. The following synthesis is based on
the extracted data from these articles. Table 2 provides an overview of the
geographic locations as well as the populations, aims, and methodologies
reported in the articles. The studies took place in predominately
English-speaking countries such as the UK, the US, and Australia. PhD
populations varied greatly in size from under 20 (Green, 2010) to several
thousand (Carpenter, 2012), but the exact number of PhD students representing
health sciences was often unclear (Carpenter, 2012; Green, 2010; Ramlogan,
2014; Trafford & Leshem, 2009). Four studies were
about the PhD students themselves or their academic supervisors/librarians
(Carpenter, 2012; Green, 2010; Trafford & Leshem,
2009; Warburton & Macauley, 2014), and three studies investigated written
scholarly output, i.e., citation practices (Edwards & Jones, 2014; Grigas et al., 2017; Ramlogan,
2014).
Table 2
Overview of
Included Articles
|
Article |
Country |
Population |
Aim |
Methodology |
|
(Carpenter, 2012) |
UK |
6,161
Generation Y (born 1982 - 1994) doctoral students and 7,432 older doctoral
students; cohort of 30 full-time doctoral students |
Identify the
research behaviour among doctoral students in Generation Y |
Mixed; three
annual surveys and a longitudinal, qualitative cohort study |
|
(Edwards & Jones, 2014) |
US |
107 doctoral
dissertations |
Compare how
well library collections support doctoral research |
Quantitative;
citation analysis |
|
(Green, 2010) |
US and
Australia |
42 participants
including 5 American and 6 Australian librarians, 8 American and 10
Australian doctoral candidates, and 6 American and 7 doctoral advisors |
Examine and
reconsider the assumption that doctoral students are information illiterate |
Qualitative;
interviews coded through grounded theory |
|
(Grigas et al., 2017) |
Lithuania |
39 doctoral
theses |
Evaluate how
useful freely available full-text information sources can be when writing PhD
theses; determine to what extent the library may be an information resource
provider and intermediator |
Quantitative;
citation analysis |
|
(Ramlogan, 2014) |
Jamaica |
696
theses/dissertation checks |
Examine the
service of thesis and dissertation checking provided by liaison librarians |
Quantitative;
statistical analysis |
|
(Trafford & Leshem, 2009) |
UK |
55 PhDs, 7
supervisors, texts from examiners |
Identify the
difficulties that doctoral candidates encounter |
Qualitative;
open-ended questionnaire, discussions, and text analysis, all coded into
vignettes |
|
(Warburton & Macauley, 2014) |
Australia |
79 PhD
candidates and 32 PhD supervisors |
Profile PhD
candidate usage of research consultation service; explore if consultations
make a difference in the early stages of the PhD candidature |
Mixed;
open-ended questionnaire, survey, both online |
Both
quantitative and qualitative methods were used to achieve the aims of the
studies. Citation analysis was employed within two of the articles (Edwards
& Jones, 2014; Grigas et al., 2017) to evaluate
various aspects of library services for PhD students, e.g., relevance of
library collections and the usefulness of freely available full-text
information. Numerical evidence concerning the provision of thesis/dissertation
checking was presented in one study (Ramlogan, 2014). Interviews and grounded
theory were used to challenge the assumption that PhD students are information
illiterate in one study (Green, 2010). Several qualitative methods, including
coding into vignettes, were used within one study to identify the difficulties
that PhD students encounter (Trafford & Leshem,
2009). Mixed methods, i.e., a combination of surveys and interviews, were used
within two of the articles (Carpenter, 2012; Warburton & Macauley, 2014).
The aims of these latter studies included comparing research behaviour based on
generational differences and determining the impact of early research consultation
services during candidature.
The Breadth and Depth of the Evidence
Table
3 charts the discipline-specific data collected from the articles. While all
the articles focused on PhD students, it was often difficult to locate data
specific to the health sciences. For two of the articles (Ramlogan, 2014;
Trafford & Leshem, 2009), no data could be
identified relating to health science PhD students in particular. For one
article (Green, 2010), the data fit under generalizations made for the entire
population of study regardless of discipline. For the remaining four articles
(Carpenter, 2012; Edwards & Jones, 2014; Grigas
et al., 2017; Warburton & Macauley, 2014), the reporting was clearer
concerning which findings pertained to PhD students in the health sciences, but
the amount of data was limited. The health science most commonly named was
medicine (Carpenter, 2012; Grigas et al., 2017;
Ramlogan, 2014; Trafford & Leshem, 2009;
Warburton & Macauley, 2014), and all the studies examined other disciplines
outside the health sciences at the same time, e.g., education or engineering.
Table 3
Health Science
(HS) Discipline-Specific Data from Included Articles
|
Article |
HS Population |
HS discipline(s) |
Other discipline(s) |
Usability of Findings |
Major HS Findings |
|
(Carpenter, 2012) |
Number of
respondents from HS disciplines is unclear |
Medicine,
dentistry & health, veterinary sciences |
Social
sciences, engineering & computer sciences, arts & humanities,
biomedical sciences, physical sciences, biological sciences |
2012 report
based on studies performed in 2007 and 2009; limited amount of data that
could be identified as specific to HS discipline |
E-journals
dominate as a research resource for HS students; cohort students strongly
indicate that difficulty accessing and obtaining relevant resources due to
licensing is a severe constraint on their research; citation databases and
e-journal search interfaces are equally as popular as Google; with the
exception of veterinary sciences, PhD students work alone and not in
collaborating research teams |
|
(Edwards & Jones, 2014) |
Out of 107 dissertations,
28 (26%) within psychology and 22 (21%) within social welfare |
Psychology,
social welfare |
Education |
Clear
discipline- specific reporting yet limited amount of data that could be
charted |
Psychology
students cited the highest percentage of journals; social welfare students
cited free web resources (primarily government documents or reports from NGOs
and advocacy groups) but psychology students did not; both disciplines cited
older material than anticipated; surprisingly cross-disciplinary nature of
research, e.g., social welfare students frequently cited journals in
psychology |
|
(Green, 2010) |
Number of
respondents from HS discipline is unclear |
Nursing |
Education,
physical & biological science |
Limited amount
of data that could be identified as specific to HS discipline |
PhD students
from all disciplines indicated that they used the strategy of backward and
forward citation tracking to evaluate the quality of sources and expand their
bibliographies; most PhD students developed their literacy skills without
direct instruction; librarians are predisposed toward the view that PhD
students are information illiterate |
|
(Grigas et al., 2017) |
Out of 39
theses, 2 (5%) within psychology and 5 (13%) within medicine |
Psychology,
medicine |
Humanities,
social sciences, biomedical sciences, technological sciences, physical
sciences |
Clear
discipline-specific reporting yet limited amount of data that could be
charted |
PhD students
from the biomedical sciences are substantial users of peer-reviewed
e-journals; biomedical sciences students use books and e-books less than
students within the humanities |
|
(Ramlogan, 2014) |
Unclear
reporting for 176 theses/dissertation checks; out of 520 theses/dissertation
checks, 47 (9%) within medical sciences yet unclear if on master’s or PhD
level |
Medical
sciences |
Science &
agriculture, humanities & education, engineering, social sciences |
Focus is on
prevalence of the service rather than the impact it has on PhD students; no
data that could be charted as specific to HS discipline |
Not applicable |
|
(Trafford & Leshem, 2009) |
Number of
respondents/documents from HS discipline is unclear |
Bio-medical
sciences |
Botany,
management and business, education, English, geography, history, law,
linguistics, surveying |
No data that
could be identified as specific to HS discipline |
Not applicable |
|
(Warburton & Macauley, 2014) |
43.4% of PhD
candidates and 40.6% of
PhD supervisors within
medicine, dentistry and health sciences (MDHS) |
MDHS |
Arts,
education, engineering, architecture, building & planning, veterinary
science, business & economics |
Clear
discipline-specific reporting yet limited amount of data that could be
charted |
More than half
of part-time MDHS candidates rated their information skills as "less
than adequate"; 78.8% of MDHS students spoke of information
"chaos", "floundering" and "random" approaches
to locating information; the main reasons MDHS students sought library
research assistance were for help with search terms and keywords, and for
literature searching strategy design; 100% of MDHS students thought library
consultations could assist in refining literature search strategies and 88%
thought consultations could assist in undertaking thorough or systematic
literature searching |
Summarising the Evidence
Overall,
the studies identified in this review provide a regrettably limited amount of
data about the information literacies of PhD students in the health sciences.
It has already been noted that few studies in recent LIS literature are devoted
solely to PhD students, and the results of this review confirm this knowledge
gap. Even fewer studies were found addressing information literacies specific
to health science disciplines, and the few studies identified were mainly found
in LIS journals.
Discussion
Comparing the Evidence
The
small amount of relevant data available for analysis (Tables 2 and 3)
corresponds well with the previous discoveries of Catalano (2013) and Spezi (2016).
As
established by Catalano (2013), several studies were centered around efforts to
improve library services (Edwards & Jones, 2014; Grigas
et al., 2017; Ramlogan, 2014; Warburton & Macauley, 2014). In keeping with
a common assumption in LIS research (Case & Given, 2016, p. 288), Spezi (2016) confirmed the importance of academic journals
to PhD students and that more articles tend to be read in the medical sciences.
The same evidence is found in the article reporting on the largest population
(Carpenter, 2012) as well as the two smaller studies based on citation analysis
(Edwards & Jones, 2014; Grigas et al., 2017).
Both Catalano (2013) and Spezi (2016) observed that
PhD students are inclined to begin searching on the Internet; however, Spezi also argued that library e-resources are still able
to compete with web searches. This varied approach was also reported in the
Carpenter article (2012).
A few
new findings were discerned from the limited data of the included articles.
While Spezi (2016) described how PhD students
over-estimate their ability to search for information effectively, the students
in the study by Warburton and Macauley (2014) often rated their skills as “less
than adequate” and spoke of information “chaos”, “floundering”, and “random”
approaches to locating information. Green (2010) asserts that librarians are
predisposed toward the view of PhD students as information illiterate and calls
for the profession to question this assumption; in part this is because the
students in Green’s study were found to develop their literacy skills without
direct instruction.
Additional
findings moved beyond information-seeking and discovery into the realm of “how
information is produced and valued” (American Library Association, 2015). While
Edwards and Jones (2014) found students cited older material than anticipated,
Green (2010) reported that students strategically tracked citations backward
and forward in order to evaluate the quality of sources and expand their
bibliographies. Regarding “the use of information in creating new knowledge and
participating ethically in communities of learning” (American Library
Association, 2015), Warburton and Macauley (2014) discovered that students
mainly sought library research assistance for their information-seeking, i.e.,
search terms, keywords, and strategy design. It should be noted that their
respondents were very confident in library research support, e.g., 100% thought
that library consultations could refine search strategies and 88% thought they
could get help with thorough or systematic searches. With regards to
communities of learning, Carpenter (2012) reported that PhD students in
medicine, dentistry, and health generally worked alone and not in collaborating
research teams.
Charting the Evidence Base
As indicated in Table 1, the few relevant articles
identified in this review were mainly found in LIS journals.
However, if librarians wish to inform faculty about IL and how librarians can
help, it is the disciplinary publications which faculty value that can serve as
the most effective medium (Stevens, 2007). In the health sciences, these
publications are usually scholarly articles found in databases such as PubMed.
Within the LIS community, there is a call for evidence based library and information practice (Booth,
2002; Crumley & Koufogiannakis, 2002) and a
concern that there is not enough research from which to draw conclusions. As a
former editor of the Journal of the Medical Library Association remarked,
“We have many articles; we do not have a body of evidence” (Plutchak,
2005). In an overview identifying research gaps, Koufogiannaikis
and Crumley (2006) also noted several issues that librarians face when publishing
articles, including a lack of indexing and open access options in LIS journals.
Where is the evidence about information literacy to be
found and who is publishing this research? In a small-scale reference analysis
of articles on how academic libraries contribute to student success, findings
suggest an uneven relationship between LIS and other disciplines. More
specifically, LIS is borrowing concepts and methods from the field of
education, but other disciplines rarely cite LIS research (Kogut, 2019). Another exploratory study investigating the
visibility of librarians as authors in scholarly journals within higher
education, teaching, and learning between 2000 and 2012, found that less than
2% of articles published in these journals were written by librarians; while IL
was the most common topic for librarians, most articles were theoretical and
not based on empirical research (Folk, 2014). Pilerot
(2014) notes in another small-scale investigation how the established
assumption is that there is a disconnect between research and practice, and
that the prevailing gap-metaphor should be abandoned to allow for a more
nuanced discussion between librarians as a professional group and LIS faculty.
Is there a gap in the evidence base concerning the IL of PhD students in the
health sciences? This review points to the possibility, but perhaps there is
also too little communication between library practice, library research, and
those who benefit from both.
Limitations
This review is not without its limitations. Very few
studies met the narrow inclusion criteria. Generally, the populations of the
studies were small and researchers rarely ascribed their findings to
discipline-specific practices, resulting in findings that are almost anecdotal
in nature, making it difficult to track larger trends. IL was mapped as an
established concept, but more studies might have been located if the search
strategies had included classic LIS terminology such as information-seeking or
literacy skills, or if the date range
had been extended to include research from earlier decades. This review
may have also missed articles where IL was not named, but rather described as a
particular strategy such as help from
librarians or using journal
articles. Additional studies might have also been found if PhD students
had not been treated as unique user group, i.e., labels like graduate students
or researchers were used. Moreover, the inclusion of professional doctorates
such as MD or DPharm might have also led to a broader
review.
A great deal of investigative work devoted to this
population is probably being carried out by LIS professionals, and not just by
LIS researchers. If more health science librarians were to disseminate the
results of their own research, a solid evidence base could be established
within our profession (Koufogiannakis & Crumley,
2006). More knowledge about how PhD students interact with libraries is likely
to be found in librarians’ grey literature, such as conference posters and
institutional reports. Therefore, future attempts to map this user population
should also include searches of the grey literature. In addition, if enough
original studies are found devoted to this population, these should be
subjected to some form of critical analysis before data extraction, to increase
the trustworthiness of any resulting synthesis.
This review found that PhD students in the health
sciences are underrepresented in current scholarly journals. Out of over 2,500
possible records, only seven articles met the inclusion criteria. From these
seven, six were found in LIS journals, resulting in a lack of evidence about
how to support the information literacies of this population. Future LIS
research should address this deficiency by studying PhD students as a unique
group operating within discipline-specific communities. Furthermore, it is
recommended that more health science librarians share their professional
experiences in publications that reach beyond their own institutions or
organizations, e.g., peer-reviewed articles in journals which are indexed in
databases such as CINAHL or MEDLINE.
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Appendix
Database Searches
|
Database |
Search String |
Limiters |
|
CINAHL (EBSCOhost) |
(MH "Students, Graduate" OR TI (doctoral
OR doctorate OR post-graduate OR postgraduate OR graduate OR phd OR “doctor of philosophy”) OR AB (doctoral OR
doctorate OR post-graduate OR postgraduate OR graduate OR phd
OR “doctor of philosophy”)) AND |
Peer Reviewed; Published Date: 20090101-20180831;
English Language |
|
ERIC (EBSCOhost) |
(DE "Doctoral Programs" OR TI (doctoral
OR doctorate OR post-graduate OR postgraduate OR graduate OR phd OR “doctor of philosophy”) OR AB (doctoral OR
doctorate OR post-graduate OR postgraduate OR graduate OR phd
OR “doctor of philosophy”)) AND |
Peer Reviewed; Published Date: 20090101-20180831;
English Language |
|
LISA (ProQuest) |
(MAINSUBJECT.EXACT("Graduate studies")
OR ti(doctoral OR doctorate OR post-graduate OR
postgraduate OR graduate OR phd OR "doctor of
philosophy") OR ab(doctoral OR doctorate OR post-graduate OR
postgraduate OR graduate OR phd OR "doctor of
philosophy")) AND (MAINSUBJECT.EXACT("Information literacy")
OR ti(information AND (literacy OR literacies)) OR
ab(information AND (literacy OR literacies))) |
Peer Reviewed; Date: From 2009 January 01 to 2018
August 31; English Language |
|
MEDLINE (EBSCOhost) |
(MH "Education,Graduate"
OR TI (doctoral OR doctorate OR post-graduate OR postgraduate OR graduate OR phd OR “doctor of philosophy”) OR AB (doctoral OR
doctorate OR post-graduate OR postgraduate OR graduate OR phd
OR “doctor of philosophy”)) AND |
Published Date: 20090101-20180831; English Language |
|
PsycINFO (ProQuest) |
(MAINSUBJECT.EXACT("Postgraduate
Students") OR ti(doctoral OR doctorate OR
post-graduate OR postgraduate OR graduate OR phd OR
"doctor of philosophy") OR ab(doctoral OR doctorate OR post-graduate
OR postgraduate OR graduate OR phd OR "doctor
of philosophy")) AND (MAINSUBJECT.EXACT("Information
Literacy") OR ti(information AND (literacy OR
literacies)) OR ab(information AND (literacy OR literacies))) |
Peer reviewed; Date: From 2009 January 01 to 2018
August 31; English Language |
|
Scopus (Elsevier) |
TITLE-ABS-KEY (information AND (literacy OR
literacies)) AND (doctoral OR doctorate OR post-graduate OR postgraduate OR
graduate OR phd OR "doctor of
philosophy") |
AND DOCTYPE(ar) AND PUBYEAR > 2009 AND LANGUAGE(english) |
All searches were performed on September 21, 2018.