Information Literacy Practices of Spanish-Speaking Graduate Students at the University of Kansas

Abstract

Recognizing the importance of designing educational opportunities that draw upon students' prior knowledge and experiences, this paper uses focus groups to explore how Spanishspeaking students in a graduate program at the University of Kansas (KU) in Lawrence understand academic information literacy practices within their new cultural contexts. This paper demonstrates that a variety of interwoven scholarly and sociocultural pressures mediate graduate student information activities. Findings from this paper broaden understandings of information literacy within today's diverse information environments while also highlighting the need for librarians to engage with the complexity of graduate student experiences.

Building Intercultural Teachers: Designing Information Literacy Instruction Opportunities for Increasingly International Populations

“…In effect, findings from this study illustrate the inherent complications when educational frameworks and standards are designed in isolation from learner-centred empirical research. The recognition that a sojourn overseas forms both a challenge and an opportunity further demonstrates the continued need to explore international student information literacy from the perspective of newcomers, or the people who are directly engaged with the complex and messy processes of learning how to interact with information within a new setting (Hicks, 2018a;Reyes et al 2018).…”

“…Johnston, 2014), graduate students (e.g. Reyes, Hicks & Maxson, 2018) and comparative studies of domestic and international students (e.g. Zhao & Mawhinney, 2015).…”

“…At the same time, the recognition that language students exercise their agency in the face of the structural barriers that limit their access to shared and collective understandings suggests the need to acknowledge that international students play an active rather than a passive role in mediating their engagement within a new information environment. Newcomers have typically been positioned as uninvolved with their adjustment to a new context, as evidenced by the tendency within information literacy literature to treat international students as recipients of assistance rather than as knowledgeable individuals who are experts in their own activities (Reyes et al, 2018). The elision of student agency, which may reflect the influence of psychological models of acculturation that position international movement as centred on an unquestioning induction into dominant social norms (Volet & Jones, 2012, p.246), is further reinforced by the depiction of adaptation to a new setting as needing to be managed by support staff (Ecclestone, 2009, p.23).…”

From Business Information Literacy to Decision-Making, Problem Solving and Innovation

“…After 1974, academics started to develop further research about the topic. Information literacy discusses issues related to the field of education (Alkhezzi, Hendal, 2018;Graves et al, 2021;Reyes et al, 2018) and related theories are based on theories of learning created by great thinkers such as Piaget, Ausubel, Vygotsky, among others.…”

“…A company may share manipulated information or even false information about themselves to affect its competitors. The competitive environment of organizations requires managers who are capable of identifying fake news and analyzing information critically (Ottonicar, 2020). Therefore, information literacy helps the identification of fake news (Jones-Jang, Mortensen, Liu, 2021).…”