Shaping practice and identity exploring the interplay between workplace and the information literacy practitioner, Lucy Dodge

Editor's Notes

• #1 [SLIDE 1] Hi everyone, my name is Lucy, and today I’m going to be presenting a research project that I completed for my MA dissertation at University College London.
• #2 [SLIDE 2] So, to start, a bit of background to the project. Regarding Information Literacy, on the whole, scholarly and practitioner attention has focused on the Higher Education sector, with Academic IL being the most developed area of research and advocacy. But there has been a growth in interest in Workplace Information Literacy during the last two decades, and it was an area that I became really interested in during my MA programme. When we’re thinking about WPIL, various different definitions exist, but can be broadly categorised into two main types. There’s Functional Approaches – these focus primarily on the acquisition of skills and competencies required to use workplace information sources. Whereas: Socio-cultural Approaches contextualise these competencies by exploring the social practices of communities within specific workplace information environments. CILIP’s 2018 definition of WPIL touches on both of these approaches – with reference to the more functional ‘when and how’ of information behaviour, but also socio-cultural elements: highlighting the importance of context, practices, as well as relativity and difference.
• #3 [SLIDE 3] And just to explain the terminology I’m using a little more: In workplaces involving professional groups – such as lawyers, doctors, policy researchers – a Library and Knowledge service often exists. As part of this service, WPIL practitioners deliver activities designed to support the information needs of their professional patron group (PPG). This ultimately helps these professional groups achieve effective and meaningful practice.
• #4 [SLIDE 4] So with all that in mind, I formulated the following research question: ‘How and in what ways does the professional workplace shape Information Literacy practitioners’ activities and identities?’
• #5 [SLIDE 5] I felt this research was important for a few key reasons: Firstly, despite the important work they do, I identified that not many studies have engaged directly with WPIL practitioners about their role and responsibilities. But I felt that centring the voices of these practitioners was important because how people conceive of and experience their roles influences their practice. I also felt that examining practitioners’ reflections on the challenges, opportunities, and variation within their work might provide insight that can guide the development of new instructional strategies, which could ultimately enhance IL services for PPGs. And finally, I thought that the research might be useful to professional associations, in terms of offering findings that could inform the work they do around CPD, particularly regarding teaching and learning practices.
• #6 [SLIDE 6] So just to elaborate slightly further on that gap in the research field that I mentioned. In the main, WPIL research has looked at the information behaviours of workers, rather than focusing on those who deliver IL to these groups. And those workers have predominantly been white-collar, but more recently attention has been given to some blue-collar workers too. Often through qualitative research methods, engagement with these working groups has explored the processes they go through while seeking and using information to perform their jobs. But as I say, in contrast, there have been far fewer studies engaging with people who deliver IL activities to these groups. And in the instances where WPIL practitioners have been considered, it is often tangentially – still through the lens of exploring the behaviour of working groups, or from an organisational perspective, or in relation to the mechanics of training programme delivery. I also found that WPIL practitioners’ activities and aims are spoken about, without directly consulting them or speaking to them. This differs from IL practitioners and teaching librarians working in Higher Education, who have been interviewed within research studies – whether that be about the environments in which they work and the dynamics of interacting with teaching faculty, or about their sense of identity (for example, whether they think of themselves as teachers or the anxieties around delivering instructional work). But I found that this level of direct engagement has not been afforded to IL practitioners employed in professional workplace contexts.
• #7 [SLIDE 7] So, how did I carry out this research? Firstly, I chose a qualitative research design for the study in order to secure that direct engagement with WPIL practitioners. Specifically, I opted for interviews as my research method, as I felt having in-depth conversations would help me build a rich understanding of individual perceptions and experiences. I thought this was particularly important given the study’s inclusion of identity as a key focus, which is a highly subjective topic. I conducted semi-structured interviews with four IL practitioners employed in different professional workplaces. These interviews were standardised and open-ended. So I asked the same set of 10 questions to each participant, and they then responded in any way they wanted to. Those interviews lasted between 35 and (mostly) 60 minutes.
• #8 [SLIDE 8] I utilised purposive sampling to identify and select participants whose job titles and places of work were relevant to my research. I wanted to choose candidates from different workplaces, in order to provide diverse viewpoints and data for comparison. So in the end, these were my four participants. And as you can see they work in the government, legal, not-for-profit, and health sectors respectively. As such, they also serve a variety of PPGs. Just a quick note here to say that obviously, this was a Masters project, so it was a relatively small sample size. It did also lack representation from the private sector, and all four interviewees work in organisations based in the South of England. And these are limitations that I hope could be addressed in future work, which I will return to at the end.
• #9 [SLIDE 9] Following transcription of the interviews, two cycles of coding were performed. In the first cycle, both descriptive and in vivo coding were used for analysis, which produced a very long list of codes. This meant that the second cycle was about consolidating and narrowing down. So ultimately, I produced a final list of 17 codes, which I then grouped into four thematic categories.
• #10 [SLIDE 10] So to visualise this, the central box in each cluster was my category title, and the surrounding boxes were my codes. And this arrangement actually provided the structure for my Findings chapter. Now whilst I would love to go through each category in turn, given time constraints, I’m going to focus on two main areas to give you a flavour of the research – and those will be Agency and Identity.
• #11 [SLIDE 11] So first off, is the Agency of WPIL practitioners – and specifically, the strategies devised by the study’s participants to harness and navigate their workplace landscapes. 1. This included participants performing processes of contextualisation. I found that participants strive to understand their particular workplace environments (taking stock of constituent audiences, modes of operating, information sources, and the broader culture of their organisation). With that rich knowledge and understanding, they then actively tailor and adapt their activities to best fit their specific context, ultimately to make their IL work meaningful. This was evident in their choices of content and style of IL activities. So, participants relate information skills and competencies to context-specific literacies (such as parliamentary or health literacy); they select relevant and appropriate examples to illustrate key points; they use both formal and informal methods for instruction; and they ensure a variety of training is available to account for the diversity within their PPGs (they catered for a range of information needs dependent on job role or level of seniority) 2. The participants respond to challenges with creative solutions. It became clear that the amount of time and attention patron groups give to the participants is affected by workplace realities. So participants acknowledged the strain that PPGs are under as a result of multiple workloads, time pressure, and information overload. Yet, my conversations revealed the ingenuity of WPIL practitioners in devising workarounds to meet these challenges. For example, based on their experience working with their patron groups, participants have deduced that patrons understand and retain information best when they ‘learn by doing’. And so, participants make IL instruction practical or vocational, task-focused, and target sessions at the point of need. 3. Participants engage in collaboration and advocacy. I found that participants actively seek to collaborate with other departments or wider professional networks in the delivery of their IL activities. This reflected a recognition that the complexity of workplace ecosystems requires the participants to adopt a multi-pronged approach to IL over an isolationist mindset. I also found that participants are enterprising in raising the profile and ‘selling’ their IL offer – for example, forming partnerships with senior staff members who then act as IL champions or being really astute in ensuring IL activities tie in with broader organisational aims.
• #12 [SLIDE 12] Why is this interesting? My interpretation of previous studies is that they tend to sideline the enterprise involved in IL practitioners’ instructional work or conclude that scope for agency is constrained by external factors. I found this to be true for studies investigating both real-life interactions in academic contexts, as well as research looking at IL models through analysis of professional guidelines. Whereas my study’s findings diverge from this research: it found that WPIL practitioners regularly exert agency in a variety of ways: by moulding output to fit their context, adopting flexible and adaptable behaviours, and forwarding an ethos of integration within their work. And actually, this finding prompted me to reflect that it is perhaps just as pertinent to flip my original research question around – asking how and in what ways the information professional shapes IL activities in the workplace. This led me to conceptualise the connection between workplace environment and WPIL practitioner as one of interplay, where the direction of travel regarding shaping processes moves both ways. This is important for practice because in recognising this agency, it opens up space for further thinking around how practitioners can help guide the development of their patrons’ information landscapes (including how criticality might be enacted within workplace IL).
• #13 [SLIDE 13] The second finding I’m going to look at is Identities of WPIL practitioners. Key here is: 1. Nuance and variety in self-perception. When asked how they self-identify within their current role, all participants found it difficult to pinpoint a particular word or phrase. A variety of terms and descriptions were considered. Within these, I distilled out four key role types. The first is ‘matchmaker’ or facilitator’ – this is about helping patrons connect with each other. Through liaison activities or group sessions, participants encourage patrons to see their fellow professionals as information sources and facilitate dialogue between them. The second is ‘guide’ or ‘support’ – interestingly, this support was expressed in both practical terms (acquiring search skills) and affective terms (such as giving reassurance or helping build confidence). The third is ‘developer’ – rather than viewing patrons as ‘blank slates’, participants described helping patrons develop their existing skills or suggesting potential techniques. In this sense, participants exhibit constructivist behaviours and approaches within their IL practice. The fourth is ‘questioner’ – encouraging PPGs to reflect on and think critically about their current information behaviours, alongside actively raising alternatives to the status quo.
• #14 [SLIDE 14] Why is this interesting? The framework that I developed provides further support for socio-cultural approaches to WPIL. For example, the plurality of identity types reflects the existence of difference and relativity, feeding into relational models of IL. And the importance of sociality and social practice within workplace settings can be seen through the prism of the ‘matchmaker’ role. Secondly, the role types described by participants do not reflect prescriptive modes of instruction, nor do they fully align with service-oriented models. Instead, the way in which participants perceive themselves is far more nuanced and varied. Interestingly, I think this could relate to a further part of my study. This found that the nature of relationships between PPGs and WPIL practitioners centres on a ‘professional to professional’ dynamic, given the relative expertise they both bring to their interactions. This dynamic complicates the boundary between ‘expert’ and ‘novice’ categories, making teaching and learning within the workplace context a more nuanced process. Ultimately, I think it could be this fluidity that ‘frees up’ space for a wider variety of role types.
• #15 [SLIDE 15] Secondly on identities is discussion of 2. Teacher status. As you can see, the majority of participants do not call themselves ‘teachers’ in their current role, and appeared uncomfortable using this label. For some, this relates to their lack of a formal teaching qualification (both Participants C and D made reference to this). Only one participant accepted the label of ‘teacher’ – and actually said they think it is important that librarianship is recognised as a teaching profession.
• #16 [SLIDE 16] Why is this interesting? Hesitance to adopt ‘teacher’ status parallels research conducted with Higher Education librarians, suggesting that uncertainty or uneasiness around using the title of ‘teacher’ runs across the profession, regardless of sector. Secondly, throughout the interviews, participants communicated a broad, nuanced, and multifaceted view of IL and its purpose. Yet, at the same time, participants appear to hold quite a narrow or traditional view of what it means to be a ‘teacher’. I feel that this misalignment was encapsulated when Participant-A's stated that “that they do not teach, they enrich information practices”. But we might argue that enriching information practices is one of the essences of being an educator. This got me thinking that perhaps if WPIL practitioners are encouraged to view their behaviour through a constructivist lens, this might lead to the development of a ‘constructivist teaching identity’. Ultimately, this matters because the way in which information professionals conceive of and talk about themselves not only shapes their IL practice – it also influences how they are seen in the eyes of others, which links to Participant-B’s statement about external recognition and professional standing.
• #17 [SLIDE 17] I appreciate that that was quite a whistle stop tour, but just to wrap up with some suggestions for future studies. So this research design could be scaled up to involve more WPIL practitioners, which would yield additional data for comparison. In scaling up, some of those limitations that I referenced earlier could potentially be addressed by including corporate and business librarians employed in the private sector, as well as interviewing professionals in the North of England. This would hopefully provide a richer, more detailed picture of the environments in which practitioners are employed. Alternatively, an in-depth examination of one workplace type could be undertaken, interviewing multiple IL practitioners from the same sector. If that was going to be done, I would recommend this be a sector that has received less attention in the research field, such as the government or not-for-profit spheres. Finally, I hope that this presentation has highlighted two interesting areas for future research – so, agency and identity. Regarding agency, a comparative study could look at potential differences in scope for practitioner agency between an academic context and a workplace setting. Regarding identity, the four role types that I talked about could be used as a preliminary framework for further exploration into practitioners’ sense of professional self. Or, a more focused investigation into the formulation of constructivist teaching identities within the workplace might yield practical guidance for WPIL practitioners.
• #18 [SLIDE 18] I think that’s me done – I have some references on this slide, but otherwise I would be happy to take any questions.