The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on information phenomena is being actively researched in information sciences (e.g. Lloyd & Hicks, 2020; see Montesi, 2021 for a review). The pandemic created unique possibilities to study different populations in extreme circumstances and unique crisis situations. One such unique situation emerged on the Faculty of humanities and social science at the University of Zagreb, Croatia. There, a group of 20 library and information science (LIS) students in an online information literacy course were faced with the task of reflecting about their information experience at the height of the pandemic. The material they submitted showed authentic and deep free reflection on a subject of interest related to the real, lived experiences of participating students. In this report we will show how emerging Croatian LIS professionals experienced the pandemic.
The task created what Bruce et al. (2014) frame as the intersection of the experience of information using and experience of learning. This assignment offered a unique research opportunity to study an information experience through student-created media. Students were asked to create a video log during the semester about the problems they faced because of the pandemic and the global health crisis. They reflected upon the impact of those events on experiences of information and their information practices. Through a subset of questions they were asked to consider how practices have changed, ways in which they encountered information, strategies they used to resolve their information needs, and how they responded to information they were exposed to sought themselves.
We provided the students with some technical information on how to create their video logs. Out of 20 undergraduate students attending the course in their final (third) year of study, 18 students gave permission to use their video logs for research purposes, thus creating a unique convenience sample of rich content about the information student experience during the pandemic. The resulting videos were 4 minutes and 17 seconds long, on average. Together the films totaled an hour and twenty-five minutes of filmed material. This study used an intepretivist grounded theory approach in studying the films. We focused on a systematic exploration of the diversity of students’ information experience during the COVID-19 pandemic as the basic phenomena of interest. We also sought to portray the kinds of information needs, behaviors, and practices they found relevant to their information experience during the pandemic. We will map examples and contexts of the students’ information experience, illustrating the phenomena relations, strategies, and consequences about which the students freely reflected. We also considered the students’ stances and chosen approaches to video creation. This included taking account of the students’ personal experience, their attempts at expert analyses, their artistic expression of experience, and so forth.
We transcribed and coded the video logs in accordance with the grounded theory approach (following Strauss & Corbin, 1990). We organized the coding process as an inductive qualitative research process involving a stage of open coding. This was followed by an axial coding stage where elicited codes were combined into more general categories. These general categories defined aspects of students’ information experiences and formed the basis for a deeper understanding of the diversity of students’ information experience. We interpreted the results in the context of Croatia and related phenomena as perceived by emerging LIS professionals. We will explore whether the applied pedagogical method created authentic learning experiences for LIS students and whether it can, on the methodological level, be used as a basis for information experience research. Since this research emphasized information experience, future research needs to explore the same learning experience as an informed learning event.
Reference
- Bruce, C. et al. (2014). Information experience: approaches to theory and practice. Emerald Publishing Limited.
- Lloyd, A., & Hicks, A. (2020). Risk and resilience in radically redefined information environments: Information practices during the COVID-19 pandemic. Proc. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol., 57, e336. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.336
- Montesi, M. (2021). Human information behavior during the Covid-19 health crisis. A literature review. Library & Information Science Research, 43(4), 101122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2021.101122
- Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. M. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques. Sage Publications, Inc.
Denis Kos
University of Zagreb, Croatia
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French