Research Article
Information Literacy Beyond Librarians: A Data/Methods
Triangulation Approach to Investigating Disciplinary IL Teaching Practices
Britt Foster
Public Services Librarian
Henry Madden Library
California State University,
Fresno
Fresno, California, United
States of America
Received: 30 Aug. 2019 Accepted: 3 Jan. 2020
2020 Foster. 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/eblip29635
Abstract
Objective – While library literature contains many studies examining faculty
perceptions of the value of librarian-led information literacy (IL) instruction,
there is little evidence regarding IL instruction practices of disciplinary
faculty independent of librarians. In a climate of uncertain budgets,
increasing student enrollment, and increased conversation around the need for
IL, media, and digital literacy skills, this study aimed to investigate a
little-researched area of the IL instruction, learning, and development milieu.
Methods – In collaboration with the institutional research office, a data and
methods triangulation approach was used. A survey of
disciplinary faculty was administered and disciplinary faculty focus groups
were also conducted. Student outcomes and annual assessment reports, documents
that describe teaching and assessment methods for courses across the
university, were analyzed. Voyant, a text-mining
tool, was also used to determine key phrases and terms related to IL in these
documents.
Results – Results revealed that disciplinary faculty highly value skills and
understandings affiliated with IL competency. Faculty provide the majority of
IL learning opportunities independent of librarians, although these learning
opportunities are generally provided through implicit, rather than explicit,
methods. Pedagogical methods that may enable explicit practices, such as the
use of standards and competencies, are infrequently used.
Conclusion – Evidence and findings from this study are being used to inform several
initiatives to work with disciplinary faculty for IL instruction, including new
services, resources, and instruction models to support IL development in
students.
Introduction
The California State University (CSU) is a
large public university, serving students seeking a professional, applied,
comprehensive education (CSU, n.d.). As a
member of the CSU system, California State University, Fresno (Fresno State)
fulfills this function for the Fresno region of the Central Valley of
California, serving four counties in the heart of the state. Fresno State is a
large campus of 25,000 students and 3,000 employees, with degrees offered in
the arts and humanities, agricultural sciences, business, engineering, health
and human services, social sciences, and sciences. Fresno State also offers 43
Masters degrees and three doctoral degrees (CSU,
2016).
As a member of the Western Association of
Schools and Colleges Senior College and Universities Section (WSCUC), Fresno
State is evaluated for accreditation on five core competencies: critical
thinking, quantitative reasoning, written communication, oral communication,
and information literacy (IL) (WSCUC, 2016).
As part of the assessment work related to accreditation, the IL Assessment
committee has administered the Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy
Skills (SAILS) test to incoming freshmen (fall) and graduating seniors (spring)
every year for several years. The results have consistently demonstrated that
Fresno State incoming students score far below average in IL skills, and have
not yet developed proficiency in research and information skills essential to
their academic and professional success.
The teaching and learning librarians at Henry
Madden Library (Madden Library) primarily provide IL instruction through the
traditional one-shot, in sessions lasting approximately 30-90 minutes. In the
context of SAILS scores, as well as other IL assessments, Madden Library
librarians have often discussed the effectiveness of the one-shot to provide
students with foundational IL skills, as well as the more advanced skills
necessary for their undergraduate and graduate degrees.
In exploring ways to innovate in developing
higher-order IL skills, the opportunity to partner with the institutional
research office, the Office of Institutional Effectiveness (OIE), in their
inaugural OIE Faculty Fellows program was presented. Designed to familiarize
faculty with institutional research services and resources, this program
provided faculty researchers a stipend to explore questions relevant to
university interests, including accreditation. The library researcher chose to
explore the pedagogical practices of disciplinary faculty related to IL,
focusing specifically on how disciplinary faculty teach IL to their students.
In choosing to examine IL instruction and learning outside the context of
library teaching and learning work, the goal of this study is to gain an
understanding of how to partner with disciplinary faculty to develop IL skills
in students.
Literature Review
Many studies have
examined IL within the university ecosystem. These include efforts to integrate
IL into the curriculum, both at the institutional and departmental levels;
examining collaborative IL instruction between librarians and disciplinary
faculty; and, to a smaller degree, the role of disciplinary faculty in teaching
IL independent of the library or their librarian colleagues. Much of this
literature is written by and for librarians (Bury,
2016; DaCosta, 2010), and as such, the independent teaching of IL by
disciplinary faculty has not been fully explored.
Beyond the Library:
IL Across the Institution
Examining IL in the
context of wider implementation has been motivated by several factors. Amongst
these is the desire to increase the impact of IL instruction beyond the
one-shot (Smith, 2006, the inclusion of
IL within university accreditation standards (which necessarily broadens the
responsibility for IL teaching and assessment) (Owusu-Ansah,
2004; Thompson, 2002), and to examine or emphasize unique aspects of IL
teaching within the disciplines (Brems, 1994;
Detlor, Julien, Willson, Serenko, & Lavallee, 2011; Emmons et al., 2009;
Gonzales, McMillen, & Fabbi, 2009; Lwoga, 2013; Mounce, 2010).
Exploring IL outcomes, conceptualizations, and practices beyond librarian
instructional design can inform methods for successful implementation of IL
beyond library curriculums and services (Mackey
& Jacobson, 2005).
A necessary
component of this work is collaboration between disciplinary faculty and
librarians. The literature around these collaborations is extensive (there is
in fact a journal dedicated to documenting and communicating this work, Collaborative
Librarianship). These studies generally consist of reporting on
collaborative projects, or, exploring the theory and approach to the
collaborative process itself, as in Gardner and
White-Farnham (2013). Mounce (2010),
in their review of librarian/disciplinary faculty collaborations from
2000-2009, provides an in-depth look at the nature of some of these reported
collaborations.
The work described
above, however, generally centers on the librarian/library perspective. One
reason for this is that IL research remains largely within the domain of
librarianship (Bruce, Somerville, Stoodley,
& Partridge, 2014). The development of IL as a concept and as a
literacy has also generated from within the library and information sciences (Leaning, 2017). The result is that
disciplinary faculty are less aware of methods to integrate IL effectively into
their teaching practice (Bury, 2016).
While the
above-mentioned studies on collaboration have examined some methods to increase
the capacity of IL teaching for non-librarian instructors, again, the literacy
expertise lies with the librarians. This is demonstrated through
“teach-the-teacher” approaches, when librarians use this expertise to provide
their disciplinary colleagues with the skills to integrate IL into their own
practice (Bury & Sheese, 2016; Everett,
2010; Smith, 2006; Veach, 2009).
Faculty
Perspectives on IL
Beyond methods to
integrate IL more broadly into the institution, there has also been an
examination of disciplinary faculty and their perspectives on or valuing of IL
concepts and competencies. This is central to this study, which seeks to extend
knowledge not just of what faculty think of IL, but how they “do” IL,
integrating it into their teaching work. An additional component of faculty
perspectives on IL is their perspective on the responsibility for teaching
IL—do they view that responsibility as theirs, belonging to the librarian, or
elsewhere?
Recent studies on
disciplinary faculty perceptions of IL generally measure perceptions in three
areas: 1) Perceptions of the library, librarians, and library IL instruction;
2) General perceptions of IL skills and concepts and their value to
postsecondary students, and 3) Perceptions of students’ IL skills.
This first
consideration is interesting in that it emphasizes the central nature of
libraries and librarians in research around IL. The tension between librarians
and disciplinary faculty, and the sense of librarians as “minor faculty” (or
without faculty status at all), has proven to be an obstacle for some
librarians in their IL work (Gardner &
White-Farnham, 2013; Julien & Given, 2002; Nilsen, 2012). It is
necessary, therefore, to understand how disciplinary faculty perceive
librarians in order to be successful in outreach and collaborations.
An element of the
perceptions of disciplinary faculty of librarians is their role in the
responsibility for IL instruction. Several studies have found varying
perspectives on this role. Within the context of accreditation, Thompson (2002) discusses the role that both
librarians and disciplinary faculty have in teaching IL. Several studies have
found that disciplinary faculty agree, with some caveats: Nilsen (2012) found that faculty believe in a
shared responsibility, but with a larger role for librarians. Saunders (2012) also found that faculty believe
in a shared responsibility, but with a larger role for disciplinary faculty. Bury’s (2011)
findings indicated that faculty believe that both librarians and faculty should
have a shared role, but that ultimately, faculty do the work of IL instruction
themselves. Weiner (2014) also found that
faculty do the work of IL instruction, in a study of 299 faculty at Purdue
University. These findings confirm that faculty, either with or without
librarians, view themselves as having a role in IL instruction.
Multiple studies
have found that faculty highly value IL skills and competencies for their
students (Bury, 2011, 2016; DaCosta, 2010;
Lwoga, 2013; Nilsen, 2012; Saunders, 2012; Weetman, 2005). DaCosta (2010) evaluated several key IL skills, and
found disciplinary faculty wished students had developed all of the listed
skills by the time they graduate: no skill scored below 80% of responding
faculty. Bury (2016) discovered that
faculty strongly desire their students to have the ability to develop a topic,
as well as evaluate and synthesize found information. However, multiple studies
have also found that disciplinary faculty perceive their students to be weak in
IL understandings (Leckie & Fullerton, 1999;
Lwoga, 2013; Nilsen, 2012; Saunders, 2012).
If disciplinary
faculty view IL as their responsibility, and value IL as a skill necessary for
students to learn, how then, do faculty do the work of IL teaching? There have
been limited studies of IL pedagogy outside of librarianship, the gap which
this study aims to address. In the few studies found, IL teaching is often
tacit, and assumed to be learned through “osmosis” (Gardner & White-Farnham, 2013; Lwoga, 2013; Weetman, 2005). Leckie and Fullerton (1999) examined engineering
and science faculties’ IL practices, and found only half incorporated some
aspect of IL all the time. The most consistent practice was assignments
designed to develop critical thinking (Leckie
& Fullerton, 1999); Bury (2016)
also found that faculty highly value pedagogy that develops critical thinking,
and higher-order cognitive skills. The integrated nature of IL, critical
thinking, and other academic literacies was also found to be central to
faculty’s teaching practices, and they view these literacies as intricately
connected to disciplinary knowledge (Bury &
Sheese, 2016).
The previous
emphasis on librarianship as the lens through which faculty IL teaching
practices are viewed, and the evidence that faculty view IL as valuable and
necessary for their students, provides the framework for a deeper look at
faculty IL pedagogy, independent of librarians.
Aims
To enable deeper IL learning for Fresno State
students, an investigation of faculty IL teaching practices was conducted.
Through an understanding of these practices, it is hoped that librarians will
be able to better work with their disciplinary faculty to create and develop
further a rich IL teaching culture across campus. To interrogate the existing
IL teaching culture, the following questions guided the study:
1.
What IL teaching practices are departmental
faculty currently implementing?
2.
What IL standards, resources, and concepts
are departmental faculty currently using to inform their IL teaching practice?
3.
What IL skills and concepts are valued within
a particular discipline, as an academic literacy and/or as a professional
skill?
Methods
To investigate these questions, a data and
methods triangulation approach was used. A survey of disciplinary faculty was
administered, and disciplinary faculty focus groups were conducted as a
follow-up. In addition, student outcomes and annual assessment reports,
documents that describe teaching and assessment methods for courses across the
university, were analyzed. Voyant, a text-mining
tool, was used to determine key phrases and terms related to IL in these
documents. This method was selected to account for the complexity of capturing
teaching practices, and to be able to capture data through multiple facets.
Survey
The survey consisted of six sections:
1)
Demographic information.
2)
A list of IL skills, concepts, and
understandings, and if and how instructors include these in their teaching
practice, on their syllabus, and who teaches the concept- departmental faculty,
a librarian, or both.
3)
The same list of IL skills, concepts, and
understandings, and how important these skills are to their students as students,
and, how important these skills are to their students
post-graduation.
4)
Key IL resources, including global resources,
such as The Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education (known
as the Framework) (Association of
College and Research Libraries, 2016), and local resources, such as
library tutorials and research guides.
5)
And an open-ended comment box, where
instructors could share any additional IL-related thoughts.
The survey was sent electronically to a
representative sample of disciplinary faculty of all ranks, including
non-tenure track adjunct faculty. A total of 602 faculty received the survey,
and 122 responses were received. Incomplete responses were removed, for an n=91
(15% response rate). Survey participant responses are outlined in Table
1.
Focus Groups
Two separate focus groups were conducted, for
a total of 9 faculty participants (7 tenure-track, 2 adjunct) Participants
self-selected from survey respondents. Lasting an hour each, participants were
asked seven questions in a semi-structured interview format.
Faculty IL
Practices Focus Group: Questions
1.
How would you describe or define information
literacy?
2.
Do you see a distinction between information
literacy and other concepts such as digital literacy, media literacy, or
critical thinking? Do you see areas of overlap?
3.
In your teaching work, what information
literacy practices are you currently engaging in?
4.
What do you feel is your role in teaching information
literacy?
5.
What role does information literacy play in your discipline?
6.
Do
you see a distinction between general information literacy, and the information
culture and practices of your
discipline? What role do different partners (K-12, Gen Ed courses, W
courses, etc.) play in developing these skills?
7.
What resources do you need in order to
incorporate or further develop instruction and assessment of information
literacy into your teaching practice?
Responses were recorded and transcribed, and
then independently coded by the researcher and a graduate research assistant
who was also present during the focus groups. Results were then analyzed and
discussed together.
Table
1
Demographics
of Disciplinary Faculty Survey Respondents by Percentage
|
Characteristic |
Percentage |
|
Gender Female Male Prefer not to State |
62 36 2 |
|
Age 19 years of age or younger 20-30 years of age 31-40 years of age 41- 50 years of age 51-60 years of age 61- 70 years of age Prefer not to state |
2 6 36 20 23 11 2 |
|
Years Teaching
at the College Level First year 2-4 years 5-7 years 8-10 years 11-15 years 16 years or more |
6 25 23 8 23 23 |
|
Rank Temporary/Lecturer: Part-time Temporary/Lecturer: Full-time Assistant Associate Full |
24 13 36 16 11 |
|
College Arts & Humanities Health & Human Services Science & Math Social Sciences Business Agricultural Sciences & Technology Education Engineering |
18 19 13 12 8 11 13 5 |
Assessment Reports
At Fresno State, assessment coordinators work
with the faculty in their departments to gather data on specific learning
outcomes assessed on a schedule that has been reported to the university
assessment coordinator. The results of these assessment activities are then
stored on the Fresno State website. These assessment reports were used as a
third data source. For this study, the most recent three years of assessment
reports (15/16, 16/17, and 17/18) were used, because departments only assess a
select number of outcomes a year, and so a broader sample was needed to capture
any recent IL teaching and assessment work (i.e., if IL wasn’t assessed in
15/16, it may have been in 16/17). A total of 172 reports (1731 pages) were
analyzed.
The reports were initially analyzed using Voyant Tools. The 172 reports were uploaded to Voyant as a master PDF. Using “Document Trends,” a feature
of Voyant Tools, a list of terms and phrases
generated from the survey and focus groups were used to target relevant areas
from within the larger corpus. The terms used were creat*;
source*; citation|cite*; search*; information
literacy; synthe*; database*; library; plagiar*; database; evaluate information~5; article peer~5.
The ‘*’ was used to capture all forms of a term (e.g., plagiar*
to return plagiarism, plagiarize, etc.). The ‘|’ was used to count terms as a
single count (e.g., citation|cite as a single term).
The ‘~’ was used to capture “near” results, where terms occurred within a
certain number of words of each other. These results were then set to capture
the nearest 50 words on either side of these terms, exported to Excel by
term/phrase, and qualitatively assessed. Results were also used to follow up
directly in the assessment report text, if phrase results indicated deeper results
would be found through further reading.
Results
Results of the survey, focus groups, and
assessment report analyses are reported in this section. Results from each
individual section are reported first, followed by a triangulation analysis of major
themes and discoveries based on the combination of results.
Survey Results
Results of the survey are reported below.
Survey sections 2 and 3 (IL skills, concepts, and understandings and inclusion
in teaching practice, on syllabi, and teaching responsibility; as well as the
same list and academic and professional value) are reported in Table 2. Survey
sections 4 and 5 (awareness and use of IL teaching resources) are reported in
Table 3.
Table 2
IL Skills, Concepts, and Understandings in Teaching Practice, by
Percentage, as well as Academic Professional Value, on a Point Value of 1-4
|
IL Skill, Understanding, or Concept |
Inclusion in Teaching Practice |
Inclusion as a Syllabus Outcome |
Teaching Responsibility |
Academic/ Professional Value |
|||||||
|
|
Not relevant |
Introduced/developed
but not explicitly taught |
Already
utilized/understood by my students |
Explicitly taught and
assessed in my courses |
Yes |
No |
I teach this
skill/concept |
A librarian teaches
this skill/concept |
Both a librarian and I
teach this skill/concept |
Academic value |
Professional value |
|
|
Percent |
Average value |
|||||||||
|
Selecting
a topic with appropriate scope and according to available information |
11 |
13 |
36 |
40 |
34 |
66 |
80 |
4 |
16 |
3.05 |
3.50 |
|
Using
search strategies, including keyword searching and advanced search
features/search construction |
12 |
27 |
36 |
25 |
18 |
82 |
53 |
19 |
28 |
3.11 |
3.56 |
|
Knowing
key databases, government websites, or other sources of information for the
course/discipline |
21 |
13 |
43 |
23 |
23 |
77 |
51 |
17 |
32 |
2.74 |
3.11 |
|
Using
a range of appropriate sources according to the topic and or/discipline |
5 |
18 |
44 |
34 |
44 |
56 |
74 |
6 |
19 |
3.16 |
3.39 |
|
Evaluating
information |
5 |
19 |
48 |
29 |
58 |
42 |
85 |
4 |
11 |
3.26 |
3.78 |
|
Determining
if a source is a peer-reviewed, scholarly article |
25 |
9 |
34 |
32 |
25 |
75 |
62 |
2 |
36 |
2.68 |
3.22 |
|
Reading
a scholarly article |
18 |
11 |
35 |
36 |
42 |
58 |
83 |
4 |
13 |
3.00 |
3.35 |
|
Using
information ethically |
2 |
24 |
31 |
43 |
51 |
49 |
85 |
4 |
11 |
3.63 |
3.82 |
|
Protecting
and valuing personal information (including issues of privacy, copyright and intellectual
property, and ethically sharing and disseminating information) |
17 |
21 |
39 |
23 |
31 |
69 |
88 |
3 |
9 |
3.37 |
3.65 |
|
Synthesizing
existing information resources to create a new information product (e.g., a
literature review, a research paper, a class presentation, etc.) |
10 |
12 |
38 |
40 |
59 |
41 |
92 |
0 |
8 |
3.05 |
3.29 |
|
Utilizing
different information creation formats such as audio, visual, and text, as
well as use different platforms for information sharing including papers,
presentations, social media, websites, or other information tools |
14 |
19 |
41 |
25 |
33 |
67 |
89 |
3 |
8 |
2.89 |
3.00 |
|
Understanding
and participating in the information culture of the discipline or profession
(i.e., how information is created, shared, and valued) |
21 |
15 |
40 |
23 |
35 |
65 |
97 |
0 |
3 |
2.90 |
3.25 |
|
Understanding
the political, cultural, and economic aspects of information creation,
access, and dissemination |
37 |
12 |
36 |
14 |
23 |
77 |
100 |
0 |
0 |
2.74 |
2.88 |
|
Reflecting
on personal research and information creation habits and making changes based
on those reflections |
27 |
20 |
31 |
22 |
29 |
71 |
97 |
3 |
0 |
2.95 |
3.06 |
Table 3
IL Learning Resource Awareness and Use, by Percentage
|
IL Resource or Service |
Awareness |
Use |
|||
|
|
Not aware of this
resource |
Somewhat familiar with
this resource |
Very familiar with
this resource |
I have used this
resource in my teaching practice at Fresno State |
I have not used this
resource in my teaching practice at Fresno State |
|
|
Percent |
||||
|
Information
Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, Association of College
and Research Libraries (ACRL) |
65 |
34 |
1 |
8 |
92 |
|
Framework
for Information Literacy for Higher Education, ACRL |
68 |
28 |
4 |
5 |
95 |
|
Information
Literacy VALUE Rubric, Association of American Colleges & Universities
(AAC&U) |
69 |
27 |
5 |
9 |
91 |
|
Research/Subject
Guides, Madden Library |
14 |
49 |
38 |
59 |
41 |
|
Library
DIY, Madden Library |
35 |
42 |
23 |
39 |
61 |
|
Information
Literacy Modules in Blackboard, Madden Library |
41 |
37 |
22 |
29 |
71 |
|
Assignment
Research Calculator (ARC), Madden Library |
74 |
20 |
6 |
9 |
91 |
|
Video
Tutorials, Madden Library |
26 |
58 |
16 |
39 |
61 |
|
Reducing
Plagiarism on Campus Workshop, Ida M. Jones & Judith C. Scott |
23 |
45 |
33 |
33 |
68 |
|
Midterm
and Finals Write-In, Writing Center and Madden Library |
37 |
44 |
20 |
27 |
73 |
|
Academic
Success Workshops: Library Skills, Learning Center |
30 |
46 |
25 |
32 |
68 |
|
Information
Literacy Instruction/Librarian-Led Instruction Session, Madden Library |
42 |
38 |
21 |
28 |
72 |
|
General
Library Workshop (Refer students to workshop not designed specifically for my
course) |
36 |
48 |
16 |
24 |
76 |
|
Consultation
with Librarian Subject Liaison- Assignment/Syllabus Design, Madden Library |
26 |
44 |
30 |
35 |
65 |
Focus Group Results
Major themes discovered through analyses of
focus groups transcripts include IL skills, understandings, and beliefs;
disciplinary differences in IL and related pedagogical practices; and IL
practices. IL skills, understandings, and beliefs includes the IL attributes
disciplinary faculty include within their teaching practice. Disciplinary
differences in IL addresses areas where faculty identified how IL differs
within disciplines, and how it impacts IL teaching and learning. IL practices
refers to specific methods, approaches, or learning theories faculty use within
their IL teaching practice. These major themes, with sub-themes, are reported in
Table 4.
Table 4
IL Teaching
Practices Focus Groups Themes and Sub-themes
|
Theme |
Sub-themes |
|
IL Skills, Understandings, and Beliefs |
Evaluating information Synthesizing information Ethical use of information Finding information General literacy (reading, writing) Tools (e.g., research tools) Using information like a scholar/professional Fluency across platforms and with alternative formats/multiple formats Social media/Web 2.0 technologies Navigating overabundance of information/overwhelming amounts of
information Developing agency through information 21st Century Skills Critical thinking (critical reading) |
|
Disciplinary Differences in IL |
The role of peer-reviewed literature Authoritative knowledge |
|
IL
Practices |
Document/artifact (besides a research/term paper) Oral presentation Collaboration with librarians Bloom’s Taxonomy/scaffolding Implicit, integrated methods |
Assessment Report Results
Assessment reports were initially analyzed
using Voyant, and then qualitatively coded for IL
teaching practice insights. IL-related terms and total counts are reported in
Table 5. Note that these figures are for total mentions of these terms, and
includes some noise discovered through the second phase of analysis (e.g., the
term “database” generally referred to library resources, but a reference to a
department contact information database was also included).
Table 5
Assessment Report
IL-Related Terms and Total Count
|
Term |
Count |
|
creat* |
440 |
|
source* |
241 |
|
citation|cite* |
168 |
|
search* |
93 |
|
information literacy |
62 |
|
synthe* |
45 |
|
database* |
36 |
|
library |
36 |
|
plagiar* |
30 |
|
evaluate information~5 |
19 |
|
database |
19 |
|
article peer~5 |
4 |
Activities
related to creating or synthesizing information into a new product (creat*, synthe*) were strongly
represented in the assessment reports. Information evaluation and the need for
authoritative sources of information were also strongly represented. Concerns
about ethical use of information, such as appropriate citation practices and
avoidance of plagiarism, were also well-represented.
Overall Results
Combining
these results reveals that disciplinary faculty highly value skills and
understandings affiliated with IL competency, and incorporate IL into their
teaching practice. Disciplinary faculty consider IL necessary for
self-empowerment and agency in the information age, and are concerned about
their students’ ability to navigate a complex information environment. Faculty
provide the majority of IL learning opportunities independent of librarians,
and are infrequently using broadly-available IL teaching tools (such as
national standards or rubrics) or locally-available IL teaching tools (such as
library research guides). IL learning is generally provided through implicit,
rather than explicit, methods. Pedagogical methods that may enable explicit
practices, such as the use of standards and competencies, IL outcomes, and
transparent lessons/assignments, are infrequently used.
Discussion
From
these results, several possibilities emerge around faculty IL teaching
practices.
Value of IL to
Faculty
The
high value Fresno State faculty place on IL and associated skills and
understandings confirms earlier work in this area, as mentioned in the
literature review section above. Faculty in particular value the higher order
IL skills, and view them as necessary for their students’ success not just in
the classroom, but post-graduation, as well—in fact, they value IL even higher
post-graduation.
As
Bury (2016) and Bury & Sheese (2016) discuss, faculty
are also questioning the ways in which other academic literacies interact with
these higher-order IL skills, and how they impact disciplinary understandings.
In the focus groups, digital literacy, media literacy, critical thinking, and
print literacy were discussed as being integral to IL, overlapping with IL, and
even confusing in the distinction between these literacies. In terms of
teaching practice, faculty expressed concern about how to develop exercises
that can develop these multiple literacies, when the lines between the two are
blurry: for example, being able to adeptly generate high quality and engaging
content on social media (media and digital literacy), but needing more
understanding about the social, political, and economic implications of the
platform (IL).
Extremely
important to IL and the teaching practices of faculty is working to develop the
ability to synthesize information into new works. Several faculty referenced
Bloom’s Taxonomy (Anderson, Krathwohl, &
Bloom, 2001) and the highest-level skill of creation: in the assessment
reports, there were many assignments and exercises centered around the ability
to work with existing literature to support new ideas and to be adept in
creating new information products in multiple formats. In a study of faculty
perceptions of IL, Bury (2016) discusses the potential
for faculty engagement with the Framework (Association of College and
Research Libraries [ACRL], 2016) as a pedagogical approach. This interest in
creation, which is emphasized in the Framework (ACRL, 2016), may signal
an area of alignment between disciplinary faculty and librarians’ view of IL.
Faculty View IL
Teaching as Their Responsibility
Faculty
very strongly identified with the teaching of IL skills. In the survey and in
the assessment reports, it became clear that faculty work with librarians to
teach things like database demonstrations, citation style, and the basics of
search, but all other IL skills are viewed as their teaching responsibility.
This might be viewed as a challenge: how can librarians be involved with the
faculty’s work to develop higher order IL skills in students, if disciplinary
faculty view this mainly as their domain?
Bury and Sheese (2016) draw on the
work of Tamsin Haggis (2006) and an
approach to academic literacies that rejects a deficit approach in order to
embrace a systemic one, in which the whole of an institution works together to
develop student literacy through the core curriculum. This is an approach that
has been used successfully for writing (Bury
& Sheese, 2016). At Fresno State, “writing across the disciplines”
learning is formalized at all levels of the institution, including
lower-division, upper division, disciplinary, and graduate writing requirements
for all majors. This could serve as a potential model for IL, where librarians
serve as the pedagogical experts to help faculty develop methods for instruction
in IL at multiple places within the curriculum.
The Implicit
Nature of Faculty IL Teaching
Faculty
reported rarely including IL outcomes in either their syllabi or their
assignment descriptions. They were also surprisingly infrequent in assessment
reports, where IL is a core competency to be assessed with regularity. In
instances where IL was discussed, it was often listed as a singular outcome,
i.e., “Students will demonstrate information literacy.” In the focus groups, they often talked of IL
learning as a process that occurs through osmosis, an underlying skill woven
into writing or critical thinking assignments.
The
tacit nature of expert practice is central to the threshold concepts behind the
Framework (ACRL, 2016; Hofer, Townsend,
& Brunetti, 2012). There is perhaps potential for librarians to work
with disciplinary faculty to identify these tacit practices and concepts, and
use the tools of IL to begin to name and identify these understandings in order
to teach them to novice learners (Townsend,
Hofer, Hanick, & Brunetti, 2016). In an institutional ethnography of
IL instruction, LaFrance (2016) states,
“Librarians and [first year writing] faculty alike may willingly embrace a key
term [information literacy] to demonstrate their desire to serve students and a
campus community but may do so in ways that diverge from the pedagogical
currents of national statements and more recent research-driven findings about
effective practice” (p. 119). Because IL research has been generally siloed within
library/information science research, these national standards and best
practices may be exciting tools for professional development for disciplinary
faculty. Concepts taught, or desired to be taught, by Fresno State faculty
include evaluation, synthesis, and ethical use of information, all of which
have rich pedagogical practice behind them within the library community.
Carrying these practices beyond the library may yield impactful results in IL
instruction outside the library.
Implications for Practice
Evidence
and findings from this study are being used to inform several initiatives.
Collaborations with the institutional research office, members of the Library
Subcommittee of the Academic Senate, instruction librarians, and the Center for
Faculty Excellence are resulting in the development of new services, resources,
and instruction models to support IL competency in students. An IL breakout
session has been offered for two years at the new faculty orientation, and the
lesson plan from this session is being used to design a mobile professional
development course that can be offered to departments, colleges, and other
units.
Other
methods to formalize and institutionalize IL are also being explored, including
a credit-bearing IL course and inclusion of IL in the general education
curriculum.
Limitations
While
the design of this study attempted to address challenges related to
self-reported data (survey and focus group results) through a triangulation
approach also including assessment reports, limitations remain. Access to
additional documents related to faculty teaching and learning would have been
ideal. This includes the use of syllabi, but syllabi are not systematically
collected at Fresno State. Observational data and data from students would also
be useful, and may lessen social desirability bias concerns for self-reporting
of teaching practices (Kopcha & Sullivan,
2007), but privacy and academic freedom concerns limit access to these
data sources.
While
an aspect of this study focuses on the implicit IL teaching practices of
faculty, it must be acknowledged that IL, writing, critical thinking, and many
other literacies or academic competencies are sometimes difficult to delineate.
For example, when reviewing assessment reports, the act of creating a “new”
information product, such as a term paper or slide presentation, may be
considered an information practice. However, the information skills necessary
to successfully complete these assignments may also be treated as writing, oral
communication, or visual literacy skills. While it is useful for librarians to
view these assignments through an IL lens, disciplinary faculty may view these
from a more holistic perspective, and use tools, services, and resources
outside the IL domain to teach these skills. This may also limit what
pedagogical practices faculty view as IL practices. Further research into this
area may be particularly rich for librarians in understanding faculty IL
practices.
This
study was undertaken as institutional research, and as such, the results are
limited to a small sample size at a single institution, limiting the
generalizability of the findings. The tools used to conduct this survey are
free to use, however, and it is hoped that further research at other
institutions will lead towards additional findings that can inform librarians’
support of their disciplinary faculty’s IL teaching practices.
Conclusion
Investigating
methods to increase librarians’ ability to support student development of
higher order IL skills, the IL teaching practices of disciplinary faculty were
investigated. Using a data/methods triangulation approach, a survey of faculty
was administered; focus groups were held; and assessment reports were analyzed.
The goal of this approach was to discover how faculty are currently
implementing IL into their teaching practice; what standards and other IL
resources they are using to do so; and how they value IL for their students,
both within the classroom and post-graduation. While many studies have
investigated disciplinary faculty perceptions of IL, this study adds to a very
small body of literature by situating these perceptions not in the value of librarians
teaching IL, but through faculty’s own perceptions of IL within their teaching
work. This is particularly relevant to the goals of the Framework, which
emphasizes collaboration and the transdisciplinary nature of IL (ACRL, 2016).
To do this work, librarians must understand how the Framework and IL
fits into the nature of their partner faculty’s existing teaching practices. An
even smaller body of literature has attempted this investigation within the Framework
context (see Dawes, 2019 and Dubicki, 2019).
Results
revealed that faculty value IL highly, particularly for students
post-graduation, and that disciplinary faculty view IL as within their teaching
domain. This confirms prior research into the value and teaching responsibility
of IL (Bury, 2011; Saunders, 2012; Weiner, 2014). Additional findings extend
this work by discovering that faculty may not be aware of or use IL standards
or resources to help make IL skills and concepts explicit. In addition, while
previous studies confirmed that faculty view IL instruction as their domain,
this study provides new information into how disciplinary faculty do
this work, through acceptance and application of existing IL resources, IL
learning outcomes, and assessment activities of IL. As much of this work is
revealed to be implicit, disciplinary faculty may be intrigued by the potential
of threshold concepts within IL as well as their discipline, towards developing
expertise in research and information use for their students.
These
findings provide evidence for several ways forward for librarians at Fresno
State to support disciplinary colleagues’ IL teaching practices, including the
creation of an IL-credit bearing course; workshops and other services and
resources to develop disciplinary faculty’s tools for IL teaching; and working
with disciplinary faculty to formalize IL teaching towards promoting student IL
development.
Acknowledgements
This
study was funded by the Office of Institutional Effectiveness Faculty Fellows
program, initiated by Dr. Angel Sanchez. Several OIE staff were essential in
conducting this study, including Matthew Zivot, Chris
Hernandez, Marie Tongson-Fernandez, and Azucena
Rodriguez. Graduate student Shauna Dauderman was a
key collaborator in designing and co-administering the faculty focus groups,
transcribing focus group interviews, cleaning up initial survey data, and
conducting initial analyses, including creating Tableau visualizations. Other
members of the 2017/2018 OIE Faculty Fellows cohort are also much appreciated
for their feedback and recommendations which strengthened this study. The
Research Services unit of Henry Madden Library also contributed useful feedback
in the design of the Faculty IL Practices Survey. Amanda Dinscore
of Henry Madden Library is also acknowledged for her support of the
administration of the Faculty IL Practices survey and study.
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