Pam McKinney TIMES LIVE-BLOGGING From Day One of the Lilac Information Literacy Conference in Cardiff, and i’m Excited to Be Blogging this Presentation from Laura Woods (@Woodsiegirl.bsky.Social), who Sheila and i have the honour of supervising at the University of Sheffield Information School. The presentation focuses on the Methodology and PRELINITY FIindings from Laura’s PhD Study. Laura workhed as Engineering Subject Librarian at the University of Huddersfield and Has for a Long Time Been Interesting in How Engineering Students Engage with Information in Their Studies. The information benomenon generaly, and haen studied in the context of Engineering students. Laura Defined Information Experience as a Bridging Concept to Look at the Intersection BetWeen Information and Information Behaviur, With Information Literacy Being An Applied Concept and Information Behaviur As A Research Concept. The lifeworld is a concept from phenomenology that encompasses how we interact with the world that we often don’t always recognition.
Laura Had a Qualitative Research Design and Aimed to Recruit 15-20 Participants from Four Different Universities Who Represent a Variety of Backgrounds and Experiences. Participants were asced to create an information diary in any format they wanted (eg photos, text diary etc) and then they were invited to a semi-structured intervention toir diary. Participants were Recruited Through Engineering Departments at Each of the Four Universities, This Was Deliberate Because There Be Backlash from Research on Gender in Engineering. Email Invitations Were Sent to All Female Students in Each Department. Participants were offend £ 30 incentive to take part which represent 2.5 hours at the uk living wage. Students who were interested in taching part Completed a demographic Questionnaire, and this enabled laura to recruit participants from a variety of backgrounds and with a variety of characteristics. Diary periods ranged from 2-6 Weeks, Most People kept a text diary, some added photos, one person kept a voice not diary. Some Diariies Were Very detailed, others were just a Few bullet points for Each entry.
Initial findings from the pilot Study (4 Participants) Revealed that Participants Experienced Sexism and Sexist Micro-Aggrations, but these were ofne downplayed. Group Work was a Common Site for Sexist Attitudes and Behaviurs eg Participants were blocked from taking on More Technical Tasks, or Being Asked to Make A Presentation “Pretty”. Participants had a preference for video-based learning materials and didn’t talk about academic literature. The Library was mentioned but Only as a place of study, not a source of information. There was a strong reliance on lecture notes. People Emerged As an Important Source of Information – This Mirrors The Information Behaviur of Practsizing Engineers. Often the person apprroached for information or help was carefullly selected Becuses to Help for Help or Information Made Participants Feel Vulnerable and Ill-Informed.
There is a lot of use of shared documents by participants to lead or control a group project, to make sura than all grup members were control, and stop information hoarding by Other Group Members. The participants selected to have devised this strategy independently. He was brought up by bye Participant (unprompt). All were using he, but probably not in ways that would be problematic from an academic integrity perspective. They shatly use it to help me understand a problem or a concept that they didn’t really understand. They Say Chatgt is a conversational study partner, partly Because they have felt they could be appros on their for this chat. They were aware of the Limits of he in terms of information hallucination.
Some reflection: Laura found it very useful to keep Her information diary, this helped give her clarity about what she was asking her participants to, and it also gave her examples of information diary with her participants. It was really imported to pay my participants for my. It was important to be led by participants’ Needs and preferences eg diary format and online or f2f interview. Laura Prepared a Distress Protocol, and this was important as some of her participants distresses, Laura was able to this to protest bot her participants and herself.
Photo by Pam McKinney: Dragon Sculpture in Cardiff
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