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Information science identity: Students' perspective
Author(s) -
Ma Yuanye,
Goray Cami
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
proceedings of the association for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.193
H-Index - 14
ISSN - 2373-9231
DOI - 10.1002/pra2.268
Subject(s) - coursework , formative assessment , identity (music) , information science , conceptualization , qualitative research , perspective (graphical) , sociology , field (mathematics) , mathematics education , science education , pedagogy , psychology , computer science , library science , social science , physics , mathematics , artificial intelligence , acoustics , pure mathematics
We present a qualitative study that maps Library and Information Science (LIS) students' understanding of their information science identity. The mapping is achieved through exploring multiple aspects of this identity, including students' conceptualization of the field and related disciplines, their evaluation of coursework, and their future career expectations. Twelve semi‐structured interviews were conducted with undergraduate and graduate LIS students in the spring of 2020. Five themes were identified through the coding process, which include: how students conceptualized the field in general, the people focus in information science, students' explicit expression of difficulty in describing the field, coursework representative of information science, and how students relate information science studies to their intended career path. Leveraging the students' perspective to frame this identity question is valuable, because it offers an opportunity to understand the Library and Information Science identity in its formative stages.