Using phenomenology to improve information literacy curricular planning and design

Abstract

This study took the form of a phenomenological qualitative study of the impressions of faculty experts in adult learning and knowledge management respectively of a conceptual framework for information literacy instructional (IL) design in Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs devised by the researcher.  It sought to answer the research question:  When devising frameworks to assist with information literacy curricular design, can getting input from faculty in related relevant fields outside of Library and Information Science (LIS) be of assistance in making them more robust?  The perspectives of knowledge management and adult learning were examined because they were the two areas outside of the LIS field found to be relevant for their pertinence to the MBA curriculum in creating the conceptual framework.  The individuals identified were also selected for their accessibility to the researcher as a means to test her hypothesis about receiving input from relevant non-LIS experts. Following the guidelines of Moustakis (1994) data was collected in the form of semi-structured interviews to gather respondents’ impressions and perceptions given their expertise.  The data collected sought to explicate phenomena surrounding the research question proposed to gauge the usefulness of taking a broader view when conceiving IL instructional design.  This research seeks to build on previous research (Boon, Johnston & Webber, 2007) by highlighting the usefulness of employing phenomenological methods in receiving input from faculty on information literacy instruction.  It also tested out a new way of conducting this sort of research through reviewing experts’ reactions to a conceptual framework used as a prop to more deeply explore the phenomena of information literacy.