Cross-Cultural Perspectives of International Doctoral Students: “Two-Way” Learning to Further

Internationalization in LIS Education

Bharat Mehrabmehra@utk.edu

http://www.sis.utk.edu/people/faculty/mehra/

School of Information SciencesUniversity of Tennessee

Outline

Research Question

Existing Trends

Research Approach and Methodology

Data Collection

Findings

Conclusion

Research Question

What can we understand from the cross-cultural perspectives of international doctoral students in LIS to:

Further internationalization of the discipline?

Internationalization is broadly viewed as processes associated with incorporating issues and elements that have origins or references other than the United States.

Existing Trends in LIS Education

279 out of 810 enrolled doctoral students in 28 schools during Fall 2002 were international students (34.44%)

(Saye & Wisser, Library and Information Science Statistical Report 2003)

23 out of 65 LIS doctoral degrees conferred in 2001-2002 were to international students (35.4%) (ibid)

LIS education is conceptualized as a “product of a careful, planned, varied, and sustained set of learning experiences, commencing the day the student enters the library and information science school until graduation. The program should be international in its intent” (Josey, 1990, pp. 25)

Existing Research on International Students

Sporadic and few studies of LIS international doctoral students in the U.S.

(Rochester, 1986; Tallman, 1990)

Primarily anecdotal and survey-based evidence that yields limited understanding about the experiences of LIS international students

(Carnovsky, 1971; Sarkodie-Mensah, 1988; Marques de Oliveira; 1990)

Focused on 1)effectiveness of international students learning; and, 2) application of American LIS education to home countries of the students

(Robbins, 1978; Kajberg, 2002)

Deficit approach: Cultural experiences and potential contributions of international doctoral students considered irrelevant or inconsequential in the growth of the discipline in the U.S.

(Saracevic, 1982; Cveljo, 1996)

Research Approach and MethodologyUse of critical theory to represent the experiences and perspectives of an under-represented group

Critical thinking goes hand-in-hand with a reflective process to question traditional understandings and scrutinize existing values, practices, ideological frameworks, and processes

(Habermas, 1993; Froomkin, 2003)

In information science research, the case method provides a positivist, interpretive, and critical approach to understand human behaviour and information seeking in information systems design and implementation (Dube and Pare, 2003; Myers, 1994; Markus, 1983)

Semi-structured case interviews were used to gather qualitative and quantitative information from 21 participants

Data Collection

Research settingProvided a real-life and typical example of a learning community in LIS education

Study participants15 female and 6 male participants from China (10), Korea (3), India (2), Azerbaijan (1), Canada (1), France (1), Georgia (1), Russia (1) and United Kingdom (1) Time duration in the program: Ranged from less than a year (more than a semester) to 7 years Age distribution: Varied from 20-29 years (7 participants) to 40-49 (3 participants)Completed masters from their country of origin, resident country, or in the United States, in electronic engineering, engineering, computer applications, systems engineering, business, cognitive science, management of agricultural information, history of science, and LIS

Findings: Why is Internationalization of LIS education in the United States Important?

Promotes diversity of perspectives, experiences, and knowledge in information research, technology design, and growth of new ideas to solve world problems

Reflects contemporary needs owing to globalization, developments in global information and communication technologies, and changing cultural demographics

Contributes to the study of LIS core in areas like user information needs, networked information technologies, and organization of information resources in multiple contexts

Maps influence of socio-cultural, socio-economic, and socio-political factors in shaping information creation-organization-dissemination processes at local levels and in globally dispersed situations

Findings: Why is Internationalization of LIS education in the United States important?

Provides tangible outcomes, for example:

Facilitates development of cross-cultural communication

Maintains a leadership role of the United States in IT-related fields

Develops global partnerships and collaborations

Increases economic gains from development and application of technological systems for global markets

Improves varied services to different people

Develops cross-fertilization and exchange in new ideas, best practices, benchmarks, and world knowledge

Perspectives of LIS International Doctoral Students

“I think it [internationalization] is making LIS education think about people’s information needs think about networked communication think about whatever issues people identify as being the critical foundational issues in LIS. And they do need to be considered in different contexts. Be it maybe across digital divides be it across borders or across languages. You know we cannot be thinking only local. I think it is fine to think in local contexts. But then consider how they will play themselves out in different situations and I think international is one dimension of the kind of situations. The foundation of LIS is organization of information to promote access, depending upon different contexts depending upon the needs the user needs and the objectives of the organization or the objectives of the community” [3.q18.4.p7].

Perspectives of LIS International Doctoral Students

“Internationalization will make LIS broad it won’t remain so limited. It depends upon the goal of the discipline the discipline is not just for the America community it is to address the problems worldwide in the global environment. And also USA is a country with different kinds of cultures and citizens. LIS has to have some diverse concerns to address for these populations. Also if in research areas United States has to have a leadership position worldwide then it has to address the concerns in worldwide context. If we just care about the problems in the local then it cannot be the leader in the whole world. And what about in the context of the global information society where everybody is interacting with everybody else this acquires special importance” [11.q18.2.p8].

Findings: How Can LIS Education in the United States Become More International?

LIS education should further internationalization in its philosophy, vision, and functions by:

Adopting aggressive international marketing of LIS as a discipline to study cultural/global interactions between people, society, and technology

Learning about how social, cultural, and political experiences in different countries determine people’s I&T usage, networks, conventions, and micro-level practices

Promoting models and interpretations based on the comparison-contrast approach that identifies similarities and differences between different cultures of practice in LIS

Incorporating international dimensions in LIS programs’ vision/mission statements

Identifying new directions in international and cross-cultural research, international project collaborations, global educational partnerships, and cross-cultural perspectives

Perspectives of LIS International Doctoral Students

“It can become more international in terms of pulling up more case studies. Not per se like business case studies but like what is happening in other countries what good things have happened. Specifically for example some of the publications that take place there never reach here. Most of the publications are US based or European based publications but especially from Asia I don’t see publications that I have come across. If you want to make your education more interesting diversified and international then you should have publications from those regions that is very important so you will know what kind of research those people are doing and that will help in developing good ideas here” [6.q19.5.p13].

Findings: How Can LIS Education in the United States Become More International?LIS education should develop non-US contributions to world knowledge by:

Expanding involvement from different countries in the processes of information creation-organization-dissemination

Building databases/collections about LIS-related research, from, and of other countries (publications from other countries, global contributions in development of user studies literature and data)

Establishing networks to insure metadata quality and quality problems in cataloging since there is a lack of knowledge about international subjects and languages

Representing international field examples/case studies that capture latest trends, best practices, and current conditions of application across the world

Findings: How Can LIS Education in the United States Become More International?LIS education should further global policy development by:

Recognizing diversity issues in information policy development and implementation around the world

Acknowledging local dynamics and community assets at regional levels

Identifying areas like international copyright policies in cyberspace where involvement of LIS educators can make a difference to understanding cultural and global dimensions

Creating community platforms based on country of origin and discipline intersections that nurture sub-communities within and outside the discipline

Supporting faculty who practice internationalizing efforts that may establish credibility, authority, and acknowledgement of international theory, concepts, applications, and practice in LIS

Findings: How Can LIS Education in the United States Become More International?LIS education should extend an international teaching and learning agenda in its course work, curriculum and content, and class instruction practices by:

Teaching students to look for sources outside the United States

Building research and teaching networks inclusive of people outside the United States

Incorporating international perspectives throughout the course work and program

Developing specialized courses on internationalization

Incorporating global case studies that represent needs assessment, software design and development, evaluation and usability issues, and technology planning and implementation

Recognizing clashes between universal applications and local variations in creation of standards, international librarianship, and library curriculum development

Findings: How Can LIS Education in the United States Become More International?

Providing opportunities in the classroom for sharing of cross-cultural experiences and perspectives of international students

Recognizing different modes of behavior, practice, and interaction, especially for students from different cultural backgrounds

Supporting stronger professional faculty-student relationships to create openness and cross-cultural communication because of differences in cultural and individual factors

Findings: Internationalizing Activities of LIS International Doctoral Students: “Two-Way” Learning

Examples

Making detailed references in teaching to international experiences and examples from their countries of origin

“As a TA there are several occasions where I bring LIS examples of how things are done in my country or about my culture in the classroom. Students seem pretty interested and they say oh yeah. I talk about library and information setting. And we use different kinds of classification schemes because Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal classification does not really work for a particular country”[15.q20.3.p8].

Findings: Internationalizing Activities of LIS International Doctoral Students: “Two-Way” Learning

Examples

Drawing attention to US-centric inaccurate information in LIS curriculum materials

“When I was a student and it was in the ___ [name of class] class and they talked about like I can’t pronounce the name the “Guttenburg Library” and the whole history of printing. And it happened in Korea before and it wasn’t mentioned and I raised my hand and like I said that actually happened in Korea beforehand. And the class slide said that the US experience was the first effort in the world which was not correct. And so ___ [name of teacher] went ahead and corrected it and I was talking to him the other day, and he said oh I went back and changed the slide” [16.q20.1.p9].

Findings: Internationalizing Activities of LIS International Doctoral Students: “Two-Way” Learning

Examples

Working with people from different backgrounds and cultures in research projects and class group activities provided a significant international experience

“The project has many students many group numbers and people from different places and they know many different things. Some people know about biology and some people know about psychology and some are programmers. But they all bring in their experiences from the different countries they belong to and people have different normal standards in different places and it helps understand aspects about people and culture in LIS” [20.q20.3.p6].

ConclusionLIS programs need to pro-actively use their international doctoral students as “gatekeepers” or bridges to “other” cultures and countries in order to extend internationalization

Tapping into the past cultural and educational experiences of LIS international doctoral students will develop international collaborations between universities, public and private sectors, NGOs, and others, from around the world for knowledge sharing and exchange

Such “two-way” learning efforts build upon the existing knowledge base within the discipline and are relatively low-cost, reliable and efficient, and they provide rich, authentic, actionable, and trust-worthy insights