Information literacy research: dimensions of the emerging collective consciousness. A reflection

Abstract

In this article, I reflect on the changes to the information literacy research domain since it was written. I provide a highly personal perspective based on my interactions with researchers, research student through visits, consultancies, conferences and reading over the years. I have deliberately reflected in a conversational way although there are parts of the article which may be of more interest to researchers themselves. Towards the end, I raise the question of what it takes for a research domain to be considered mature and how this might apply to information literacy research.

Keywords:

• Collective consciousness
• research domain
• information literacy
• research maturity

When I wrote this article, I had recently completed my own doctoral studies (in 1997), and the information literacy (IL) research community was so small that most of its members knew each other. Many were doing doctoral studies. Their published and draft papers sat in a folder on my desk. The World Wide Web was just emerging; social media, pro-sumers, data mining, e-research, semantic web, participatory library and many other phrases were not yet part of our vocabulary.

At that time, I wrote the article to stake a claim for, and to legitimise information literacy as a territory of research. Publishing IL research was difficult, and the general feeling was that information literacy was a fad. At the time, it was also important to establish a focus on IL research, and distinguish it from extensive practice-driven scholarship discussing IL programming and policy in academic and school settings. Information literacy research was starting to evolve.

Some shifting dimensions: IL research from 2000 to 2016

In looking at what has happened since then, I think it is fair to say that information literacy and information literacy research have established themselves as important and independent objects and domains; IL being a researchable phenomenon, and IL research a territory that encompasses investigation of information literacy, in its many facets and dimensions. IL research is published in information journals and also in the journals of other disciplines. It has its own journal and conferences.

There is a growing suite of monographs and edited collections associated with IL research and its applications. Information research conferences feature IL research; and the establishment of the European Conference for Information Literacy has provided a new, accessible venue for researchers and practitioners, expressing renewed international interest in developing the field.

On phases of IL research

Over the years, the volume of IL research has increased. As in earlier phases, researchers have continued to ‘locate themselves … within the social sciences tradition’. IL research has been taken up across the world. A widespread community has emerged, and teams of researchers have developed; for example, in Australia, Scotland, England, Scandinavia, South Africa, the United States, Brazil, Portugal, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong. An important marker in the evolution of the field was the appointment of Sharon Weiner as W. Wayne Booker Endowed Chair in Information Literacy at Purdue University, in 2009.

In the year 2000, I suggested that IL research was evolving, moving into a new phase or phases. My sense at present is that the territory is continuing to evolve. Could we say that the field is now maturing? Should we ask what it takes for the field to mature? What are the signs of a maturing or mature IL research domain? More on that later in this reflection.

On territories of IL research

In the original article, I predicted ‘increased attention to workplaces and community settings, a greater variety of research questions and strategies as well as influences from a wider range of disciplines …’. Indeed, the IL research territory has expanded. New work associated with workplace and community IL is yielding insights into the character and experience of IL (as a research object) in different contexts and cultures. IL education research has followed trends in the broader education sector, exploring innovative pedagogies as well as focusing on the emergence of new technologies and the centrality of students’ needs.

While the territory is expanding, the boundaries are also blurring; especially at the intersections of IL research with information and educational research. I have heard the view expressed that research into information literacy and learning is about learning not information literacy. I have also noted questioning about what it might mean to align with the information behaviour or information experience research community. While I contended, in the original paper, that ‘IL research is constituted by those engaged in the work’, it is possible that, at the present time, it would be difficult to gain agreement on what is, or is not, IL research.

Overall, education and information research continue to exert the strongest influence on the adoption of research questions, paradigms and methods. Much IL research continues to draw upon ‘user’ or ‘people’ oriented approaches.

IL research today

Despite ongoing scrutiny and debate, the phrase information literacy has become well established. At the same time, alternative language creates a way of communicating with different audiences or specifies different parts of the agenda; for example: information literacies, metaliteracy, media and information literacy, information fluency, digital literacy, transliteracy amongst others. Specific directions have associated vocabulary, for example, Lloyd identifies information literacy landscapes as a vital element of the domain. I use informed learning as a label for the relational/phenomenographic approach to IL and IL education; Hughes has constructed inclusive informed learning; Somerville uses informed systems as a label for the blending of the relational approach with systems thinking for organisational change, and Whitworth uses radical information literacy to denote an integrative approach reclaiming the transformational heart of the agenda and re-visioning the critical approach to IL.

Today, the dominant work on IL still occurs around formal education. However, workplace and community information literacy research are gaining traction. Researchers are turning their attention towards social issues, for example, information literacy in health, disasters and faith contexts, as well as groups facing specific challenges, such as migrants and refugees. While much research is qualitative, enabling participants’ voices to be heard, there are many voices just beginning to be heard, such as those of indigenous peoples. Indeed, many voices remain unheard, typically belonging to less empowered groups, such as the homeless, the abused and others who are challenged in their social participation.

As the domain has evolved, most IL research has taken on a high level of rigour. Today, we see clearly different ways of thinking about IL as research object. It is considered in terms of information and learning experiences, information practices, and information skills amongst others. Whereas a relational approach might consider the experienced meaning of information literacy, a critical approach might consider how it empowers. Research approaches have expanded to include, for example, grounded theory, ethnography, discourse analysis, new phenomenography, phenomenology, critical incident technique, and case-studies. Theoretical lenses include sociocultural, and socio-technical; variation theory, critical theory and threshold concept theory. At a paradigmatic level, positivism, constructionism, interpretivism, critical inquiry, feminism and postmodernism are all visible, either implicitly or explicitly.

We are seeing contributions from IL to different fields, such as health, education, management, leisure and leadership. Methods and theories, however, continue to be largely imported. While studies proliferate, there is little evidence of integration of these outcomes to develop more sophisticated understandings of the field. While the research topics are socially valuable, it is difficult to discern how outcomes might be influencing policy and practice. Such influences are one way of illuminating the social value of research, and could guide researchers in identifying important directions. At the same time, contemporary IL research is driven by a research climate that highlights impact on users, communities and industry, rewards publication in journals of note, and privileges funding as a marker research value.

Future of IL research: exploring possible futures

IL researchers have always been motivated by a deep interest in empowering people and bringing about social transformation, especially in response to human rights agendas. Their work is usually intended to enable education, service, programme and policy development. I anticipate that this will continue. The centrality of IL to global futures suggests that the research territory has the potential to strengthen and expand. At the same time, the need to communicate and make sense to diverse communities, and the different language that is drawn upon to facilitate this, points towards the possibility of continued fragmentation and blurring of the boundaries of the IL research territory.

What will it take for the IL territory to strengthen? As our community of IL researchers moves forward we need to explore and clarify:

(1)	The meaning of the existing body of research. How can outcomes from existing studies be brought together? – Integrated perhaps to form a different level of theorisation about information literacy, and also to build theory of information, literacy or learning from within the field?
(2)	The development and identification of concepts or constructs specific to information literacy.
(3)	The contributions of different paradigms and research approaches. How do these work together and contribute to the wider understanding of the phenomenon? What are the different branches of the field?
(4)	The potential for evolution of methods and approaches from within the territory of information literacy research, whether adapting existing approaches or purposefully building new ones.
(5)	The potential for exploring philosophical questions emerging from application of information literacy for social harm. What might it mean to explore this ‘shadow side’ of information literacy; or to consider ethical issues from this perspective?
(6)	The role and potential of the research-practice nexus. How can the connection between IL research and practice be made more visible? How might we evidence the interrelation between research and practice?
(7)	The best ways of determining priority areas for research.

In terms of research dissemination, how can we achieve sharing and communicability of projects that remain unpublished, or that are published in only one language? How can we increase accessibility – for example, through the use of open access repositories.

Of particular, interest to me is understanding the influence of the different paradigms, research approaches and theoretical lenses on the field and its researchers, and on our understanding of our research object(s). For example, researchers who identify with a particular approach, might implicitly or explicitly adopt positivist, constructionist or interpretivist positions. These same researchers also use different methods. For example, socio-cultural researchers might choose between ethnography and grounded theory. Phenomenographic researchers also might choose between three different forms of phenomenography: phenomenography, new phenomenography and lesson studies. How does this influence the research undertaken, its process and outcomes? How might deeper understandings of these positions influence potential research teams and collaborations?

Finally, I return to the question I raised earlier about the maturing of the field. Marta Vos (2015) recently explored this question around the ‘internet of things’. Her review of recent key papers (Cheon, Groven, & Sabherwal, 1993; Edmonson & McManus, 2006; Keathley et al., 2013; Von Krogh, Rossi-Lamastra, & Haefliger, 2012) suggests some ways of identifying a mature research field, including:

•	The range of variables researched
•	Variety of methods used
•	The construction of paradigms
•	The use of hypothesis testing rather than description
•	The availability of meta discussions of the field
•	The availability of quantitative studies and development of theory and constructs
•	The use of mixed methods, and tested constructs
•	An extensive literature
•	Relationships between authors
•	Evidence of academic-practitioner relationships including application of research.

The variety of evidence listed above is worthy of consideration by IL researchers. In reflecting on this new thought journey, researchers may be guided by the query: How might we recognise the continued maturation of IL research? What might be the markers or landmarks to look for along the way? What values should we bring to bear as we respond to such questions for this research field?

Perhaps, it is not too early to think beyond the maturation of the field – the strengthening and expansion of the research territory. Is there potential for information literacy to move towards disciplinary status? Gable, Smyth, and Gable (2016) and Whitley (2007) suggest that becoming a discipline involves further steps. These include establishing (a) prestigious reputations that ‘control critical rewards’, (b) standards of research competence and skill, and (c) communication symbols that are unambiguous to community members, while excluding those who have not earned admission (Gable et al., 2016, p. 686).

Notes on contributor

Christine Susan Bruce is professor in the Information Systems School, Science and Engineering Faculty at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). She is Convenor of the QUT Higher Education Research Network; Academic Program Director – Research Training for the Science and Engineering Faculty, and academic leader of the San Jose-QUT Gateway PhD program. Christine is a Principal Fellow of the U.K. Higher Education Academy, and a member of the QUT Academy for Learning and Teaching. Christine’s research interests include information literacy, doctoral study and supervision, and learning in hybrid spaces using qualitative approaches.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Acknowledgements

Preparation of this reflection is supported by an ARC Linkage Grant LP 150101002. I am grateful to the many individuals and communities that make it possible for me to be involved in their conversations and evolving thinking. For their insights and ideas about this article, I am grateful to Hilary Hughes, Mary Somerville, Clarence Maybee, and Elham Sayyad Abdi.

I am also very aware of the enormous literature available and that I have not cited a single item. From its small beginnings, many volumes could now be pulled together on information literacy research. Pointing to some, rather than others, is beyond the task of a reflection.