This study investigates the impact of transnationalism on Chinese international graduate students’ literacy practices in online information seeking. Using phenomenological interviewing, weekly diaries, and focus group data, the study found that these students actively engage in recursive, dynamic, and flexible online information-seeking literacy practices that transcend linguistic, digital, and unconventional cultural boundaries due to their multilingual capacity and unique social positioning in the online information landscape. This study reveals that these students’ transnational habitus in online information seeking manifests as a configuration of dispositions rather than one fixed transnational habitus. These findings underscore the importance of understanding multilingual international students’ online information-seeking experiences, literacies, and challenges to inform engaging, transnationally inclusive, and culturally relevant information literacy curricula and instruction in U.S. higher education institutions.
Using a transnational lens, this narrative study examines the online information literacies of six Chinese international graduate students in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data of the study were collected from phenomenological interviewing, weekly information-seeking dairies, and focus group discussions. This study illuminates Chinese international students’ transnational information literacies in navigating the pandemic online information environment. These students stayed attuned with the pandemic conditions and relevant regulations in order to inform their important decision-making concerning health, safety, visa issues, and international travel. The study also highlights participants' cultural ways of information seeking and pragmatic approaches to information credibility assessment. Results from the study show the importance of understanding and empowering the information literacy of international students, especially during a global health emergency.
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