Academic Librarians Develop Their Teaching Identities Differently Depending on Their Years of Instructional Experience

A Review of: Nichols Hess, A. (2020). Instructional experience and teaching identities: How academic librarians' years of experience in instruction impact their perceptions of themselves as educators. Communications in Information Literacy, 14(2), 153–180. https://doi.org/10.15760/comminfoli...

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Main Author: Michelle DuBroy
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Alberta 2022-06-01
Series:Evidence Based Library and Information Practice
Online Access:https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/eblip/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/30118
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author Michelle DuBroy
author_facet Michelle DuBroy
author_sort Michelle DuBroy
collection DOAJ
description A Review of: Nichols Hess, A. (2020). Instructional experience and teaching identities: How academic librarians' years of experience in instruction impact their perceptions of themselves as educators. Communications in Information Literacy, 14(2), 153–180. https://doi.org/10.15760/comminfolit.2020.14.2.1 Abstract Objective – To examine how an academic librarian’s years of instructional experience impacts how they think of themselves as instructors. Design – Survey questionnaire. Setting – American academic library profession. Subjects – 353 participants selected from 501 respondents. Methods – A Qualtrics survey was sent via email to members of several American Library Association discussion lists. The author selected a subset of respondents for further analysis based on how they answered key questions on the survey. Selected participants were those who believed they had experienced perspective transformation around their teaching identities. The author used principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to identify twelve transformative constructs across three sub-themes: relational, experiential, and professional inputs. The author then labelled each construct based on its respective component parts. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests were then conducted using SPSS. Main Results – Statistically significant differences were found between experienced and inexperienced instructional librarians. Participants with more instructional experience tend to believe their teaching identities are influenced to a greater extent by these factors: • Interpersonal relationships • Feedback from colleagues outside of librarianship • Self-directed learning opportunities Participants with less instructional experience tend to believe their teaching identities are influenced to a greater extent by these factors: • Feedback from those within librarianship • Library-centric inputs such as their formal library studies Conclusion – Different types of professional development opportunities will appeal to different librarians based on their level of instructional experience. Less experienced librarian instructors may find mentoring and informal collegial relationships within the library to be beneficial. More experienced librarian instructors may prefer to seek out relationships with colleagues outside the library to further develop their teaching identities.
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spelling doaj.art-e0caddf112e241d3b1ce3b9e076191fe2022-12-22T02:37:30ZengUniversity of AlbertaEvidence Based Library and Information Practice1715-720X2022-06-0117210.18438/eblip30118Academic Librarians Develop Their Teaching Identities Differently Depending on Their Years of Instructional ExperienceMichelle DuBroy0Griffith University, Southport, Queensland, Australia A Review of: Nichols Hess, A. (2020). Instructional experience and teaching identities: How academic librarians' years of experience in instruction impact their perceptions of themselves as educators. Communications in Information Literacy, 14(2), 153–180. https://doi.org/10.15760/comminfolit.2020.14.2.1 Abstract Objective – To examine how an academic librarian’s years of instructional experience impacts how they think of themselves as instructors. Design – Survey questionnaire. Setting – American academic library profession. Subjects – 353 participants selected from 501 respondents. Methods – A Qualtrics survey was sent via email to members of several American Library Association discussion lists. The author selected a subset of respondents for further analysis based on how they answered key questions on the survey. Selected participants were those who believed they had experienced perspective transformation around their teaching identities. The author used principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to identify twelve transformative constructs across three sub-themes: relational, experiential, and professional inputs. The author then labelled each construct based on its respective component parts. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests were then conducted using SPSS. Main Results – Statistically significant differences were found between experienced and inexperienced instructional librarians. Participants with more instructional experience tend to believe their teaching identities are influenced to a greater extent by these factors: • Interpersonal relationships • Feedback from colleagues outside of librarianship • Self-directed learning opportunities Participants with less instructional experience tend to believe their teaching identities are influenced to a greater extent by these factors: • Feedback from those within librarianship • Library-centric inputs such as their formal library studies Conclusion – Different types of professional development opportunities will appeal to different librarians based on their level of instructional experience. Less experienced librarian instructors may find mentoring and informal collegial relationships within the library to be beneficial. More experienced librarian instructors may prefer to seek out relationships with colleagues outside the library to further develop their teaching identities. https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/eblip/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/30118
spellingShingle Michelle DuBroy
Academic Librarians Develop Their Teaching Identities Differently Depending on Their Years of Instructional Experience
Evidence Based Library and Information Practice
title Academic Librarians Develop Their Teaching Identities Differently Depending on Their Years of Instructional Experience
title_full Academic Librarians Develop Their Teaching Identities Differently Depending on Their Years of Instructional Experience
title_fullStr Academic Librarians Develop Their Teaching Identities Differently Depending on Their Years of Instructional Experience
title_full_unstemmed Academic Librarians Develop Their Teaching Identities Differently Depending on Their Years of Instructional Experience
title_short Academic Librarians Develop Their Teaching Identities Differently Depending on Their Years of Instructional Experience
title_sort academic librarians develop their teaching identities differently depending on their years of instructional experience
url https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/eblip/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/30118
work_keys_str_mv AT michelledubroy academiclibrariansdeveloptheirteachingidentitiesdifferentlydependingontheiryearsofinstructionalexperience