A phase‐model of the cross‐cultural learning process of LIS international doctoral students: Characteristics and interventions

This paper develops a phase‐model of the cross‐cultural learning process of LIS international doctoral students and provides a consolidated, in‐depth, and comprehensive look at their experiences that extends prior anecdotal and survey‐based efforts. Semi‐structured interviews along with informal discussions, analysis of electronic interactions, and observations as a participant researcher identify cross‐cultural learning experiences of all the twenty‐two international doctoral students from a representative LIS program in the United States. The phases in the model of the cross‐cultural learning process represent significant cognitive (thoughts), affective (feelings), and physical (actions) aspects of the experiences of LIS international doctoral students. Mapping participants' concerns and challenges during each phase is used to highlight interventions at the level of discipline, program, faculty, doctoral student community, and individual student that together provide a practical application to the research. Proposed interventions need to be holistically applied in conjunction with each other to promote mutual “two‐way” learning where international students learn from the discipline and the discipline learns from the international students. Such an approach suggests symbiotic connections between improvements in effectiveness of student learning and efforts to tap into the cultural knowledge of international students to further growth in internationalization of LIS education in the United States.