“Ethnographic” thematic phenomenography. A methodological adaptation for the study of information literacy in an ontologically complex workplace

Date06 March 2019
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JD-05-2018-0079
Pages349-365
Published date06 March 2019
AuthorMarc Forster
Subject MatterLibrary & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet
Ethnographicthematic
phenomenography
A methodological adaptation for the study of
information literacy in an ontologically
complex workplace
Marc Forster
University of West London, Reading, UK
Abstract
Purpose The workplace is a context of increasing interest in information literacy research, if not
necessarily the most visible (Cheuk, 2017). Several studies have described contextual, relationship-based
experiences of this subjective, knowledge-development focussed phenomenon (Forster, 2017b). What research
contexts and methods are likely to be most effective, especially in workplaces which contain professions of
widely differing ontologies and epistemological realities? The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach An analysis and description of the value and validity of a qualitative
mixed methodsapproach in which the thematicform of phenomenography is contextualised ethnographically.
Findings This paper describes a new research design for investigation into information literacy in the
workplace, and discusses key issues around sampling, data collection and analysis, suggesting solutions to
predictable problems. Such an approach would be centred on thematic phenomenographic data from semi-
structured interviews, contextualised by additional ethnographic methods of data collection. The latters
findings are analysed in light of the interview data to contextualise that data and facilitate a workplace-wide
analysis of information literacy and the information culture it creates.
Originality/value Insights from recent research studies into information literacy in the workplace have
suggested the possibility of an epistemologically justifiable, qualitative mixed methods design involving an
ethnographic contextualisation of a thematic phenomenographic analysis of the information culture of an
ontologically varied and complex workplace with the potential for descriptive contextualisation,
categorisation and generalisability.
Keywords Methodology, Ethnography, Ontology, Epistemology, Information literacy, Workplace,
Information experience, Thematic phenomenography
Paper type Conceptual paper
The aim and scope of this paper
This paper is concerned with the value and validity of a proposed variation in research
methods. It is not an in-depth discussion of methodology per se, although epistemological
issues will be discussed where necessary. It is concerned in a general way with the
epistemological value for workplace information literacy research of analysis of the
variation in experience of information literacy as facilitated by the phenomenographic
approach, but fundamentally about those additional and specific insights into that variation
obtained through the thematicform of phenomenography. With that epistemological
value in mind, it discusses whether recent research studies validate the idea that thematic
phenomenographic methods might be applied to ontologically varied and epistemologically
complex workplaces, and therefore justifiably employ, to increase the richness of
perspective on information behaviour and experience, an ethnographic perspective. It must
be added that the focus of the paper is not on ethnography, and hence will discuss
ethnographic methods in only in sufficient depth to shed light on that perspective.
The value of investigating the experienceof information literacy is discussed, but the
variation of that experience is of particular significance for the workplace because of a
perceived value in understanding contexts of knowledge creation, suggesting the added
value of phenomenography compared to phenomenology. The detail available through the
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 75 No. 2, 2019
pp. 349-365
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-05-2018-0079
Received 22 May 2018
Revised 16 October 2018
Accepted 17 October 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
349
Ethnographic
thematic
phenomenography
thematic form of phenomenography, and its value, will be shown through examples. It is
that complexity which gives such vivid ontological and epistemological detail which makes
thematic phenomenography the driver of this paper.
The thematic phenomenographic method, discussed in detail in Forster (2015c, 2017b),
allows short narratives of experience of information literacy to be built intodetailed context-
sensitive and complexity-sensitive structures. These structures can show subtle variations
and radical differences in complexity and context in which knowledge is developed.
Structures, this paper will suggest, which could portray the variations and similarities of
experience, of congruence and divergence, between several information ontologies.This
makes it somewhatdistinct from usual phenomenographic practice,whose outputs often offer
great insight intothe variations in experiences of phenomena, but lack that ability,it is gently
argued, exhibited by the thematic form through Dimensions of Variation and Themes of
ExpandingAwareness, to provide such contextual subtletiesand mappings of complexitiesof
experience.The concentration on the value of the thematicform of phenomenography, and its
apparent wider epistemological applications, are why this paper, while describing the
epistemological concepts and methodological approaches of phenomenography, will not
discuss the standardphenomenographic workplace literature in depth.
It is this additional detail in the variation expressed within a coherent picture of information
literacy experiences in a particular workplace or profession which is at the heart of a second
focus of the paper. Can it give explicit ontological validity to the investigation of workplaces
whose constituent professions may have highly divergent epistemologies? Thematic
phenomenographic structures yield amongst other things varying personasof information
literacy experience which describe contexts and complexities of being information literate.
Inskip and Donaldsons (2017) study has shown that a profession (insurance broker) manifestly
different in terms of knowledge values and applications from nurses (Forster, 2015b),
experiences information literacy in the form of the same personas. This suggested that
professions, even those with little in common in terms of conceptions of workplace phenomena,
experience information literacy in ways that are similar enough to provide ontological and
epistemological justification for investigating apparently ontologically diverse workplaces
(ways that, despite their differences, can be seen to be epistemologically coherent enough to be
expressed through the details of thematic phenomenographic outcomes). That is, perhaps all
information focussed professions are informationally ontologically coherent enough to be
investigated through thematic phenomenography; a analysis yielding a single set of personas,
and other outcome detailsfor a single workplace might be viable? Itis suggested that prior to
this, phenomenography could be said to be, in terms of strict research-supported validity,
ontologically and epistemologically limited to single professions, or those studies which
investigated workplaces such as, for example, the operating room (Arakelian et al., 2011) where
concepts are widely understood in the same way by related professions.
A third focus, as hinted at above, takes things further. If there is a phenomenographic
method which can be justifiably applied to any workplace as a whole, no matter how
ontologically varied, it follows that a triangulating ethnographic, observational stance may
be possible and desirable. Thematic phenomenography has shown how so many of
experiences involve collaboration and community behaviours which ethnography
specialises in analysing. Such a qualitative mixed methods(Phillips et al., 2014) approach
may be controversial, but surely valuable and potentially insightful.
Information literacy in the workplace a subjective yet collaborative,
culturalphenomenon
Workplace professionals are information workers (Cheuk, 2017). This applies not only to
librarians and information scientists, but to lawyers, medical and business professionals and
the many others who sense and understand information need, and plan a search, locate and
350
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