Discipline as Context: Arts and Science Students' Views on Key Concepts in the ACRLFramework

Abstract

The introduction of the Association of College and Research Libraries' (ACRL, 2016) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, or “the Framework,” has fostered efforts to apply the document's concepts to information literacy instruction (ILI) to meet the needs of post‐secondary students across faculties. However, little research has directly compared students' perspectives on the Framework's concepts by discipline. This poster presents findings from a larger, mixed‐methods project investigating student perspectives on the Framework in which participants in the faculties of arts (n = 123) and science (n = 90) expressed distinct views and rankings. Their perspectives particularly diverged around perceived roles in assessing the authority of information sources and how “relevant to their experience in school” they found most Framework frames. This project expands upon emerging learner‐centered research aiming to meaningfully improve Framework‐based ILI through its direct disciplinary comparisons and use of the recently developed Information Literacy Reflection Tool (ILRT; Robertson et al., 2022).