Information Exchange of Library and Information Science Doctoral Students with Faculty Advisors

Abstract

Faculty advisors play a vital role in a learning and adjustment process of doctoral students at their work, department, university and discipline by sharing and exchanging relevant information and knowledge in the profession. Despite the important role of information practice in doctoral advising, few studies have investigated the informational aspects of faculty advisors and their students. Thus, this study aims to consider the distribution of information exchanged between faculty advisors and their doctoral students and relate them to doctoral students’ demographic characteristics (gender, age, race and/or ethnicity, degree, and stage of doctoral work). The findings of this study show that overall information exchange is most frequent at the work level followed by the discipline, school/department, and university levels. In particular, information exchange at the work and discipline levels explains the characteristics of doctoral education, socializing students into both student and professional roles. In addition, there are statistically significant differences in information exchange along certain dimensions according to the advisee’s gender, age, race and/or ethnicity, degree, and stage of doctoral study, suggesting that information needs and seeking behavior may vary according to the demographic characteristics of advisees. 

URL: http://ijkcdt.net/xml/17763/17763.pdf