Abstract
This presentation will share early findings from a doctoral study, investigating information experiences of women and femme-presenting nonbinary people on undergraduate engineering courses in the UK.
Women and other gender minorities in engineering education have been highly studied (Quezada-Espinoza et al., 2025), however, to date, little research has considered this topic from an information literacy perspective (rare examples include Davis, 2023; and Liu & Sun, 2012). This study aims to address this research gap by considering information experiences within engineering education.
Information experience has been defined as “the way in which people experience or derive meaning from the way in which they engage with information and their lived worlds” (Bruce et al., 2014, pp. 5-6). This research takes a phenomenological, reflective lifeworld approach (Dahlberg et al., 2008) to understanding the participants’ information experience, which includes their information literacy practices as well as their information behaviour (Gorichanaz, 2020).
For the study, 16 female and nonbinary students were recruited from engineering courses at four universities around the UK. Participants were asked to keep information diaries (Case & Given, 2016) in a format of their choosing, for a period of 2-4 weeks. They were then each invited to a semi-structured interview, using the diaries as a starting point to discuss their information experiences. Data were collected between November 2024 and April 2025.
The data is being analysed inductively, using reflective thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022). The diaries, which include written entries, voice notes, videos and photos, are being analysed in parallel with the interview transcripts.
Early reflections have identified potential themes including:
How gendered experiences in learning spaces interact with information-seeking practices. Female engineering students frequently work in classrooms, labs and makerspaces which are mostly populated by men, and are often conscious of how their prior knowledge and life experiences differ from their male peers. Several participants’ shared how this had shaped their perceptions of their own knowledge and skills, and influenced their self-assessed need for further information sources.
Preferences for human sources of information. Several study participants described a hierarchy of trusted sources they would turn to for information, shaped by who they perceived to have expertise, as well as their own comfort (or discomfort) with showing a lack of knowledge in front of their peers or lecturers.
Gendered expectations on the allocation of “information work” (Dalmer & Huvila, 2019) in group projects, which are common in this discipline. Participants frequently reported taking on administrative or project management work in group projects, sometimes due to perceived or explicit expectations from their male teammates that they would do so, or due to internalised expectations.
Conceptions of generative AI as a non-judgmental study mentor. Several participants specifically mentioned their anonymity and the lack of judgment from an AI bot as a reason for their use of tools like ChatGPT in preference to asking a peer for help or advice.
The presentation will discuss these preliminary themes, and share recommendations for librarians and other information literacy educators working with students in highly gender-imbalanced classrooms, or sites where mixed group work is common.
References
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2022). Thematic analysis: A practical guide. SAGE.
Bruce, C., Davis, K., Hughes, H., Partridge, H., & Stoodley, I. (2014). Information experience: Contemporary perspectives. In C. Bruce (Ed.), Information experience: Approaches to theory and practice (pp. 3–15). Emerald.
Case, D. O., & Given, L. M. (2016). Looking for information: A survey of research on information seeking, needs, and behavior. Emerald Publishing.
Dahlberg, K., Dahlberg, H., & Nystrom, M. (2008). Reflective lifeworld research (2nd ed.). Studentlitteratur.
Dalmer, N. K., & Huvila, I. (2019). Conceptualizing information work for health contexts in Library and Information Science. Journal of Documentation, 76(1), 96–108. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-03-2019-0055
Davis, R. (2023). ‘My second home’: Why undergraduate women in STEM use academic libraries. Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 23(1), 197–214. https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2023.0003
Liu, T.-T., & Sun, H.-B. (2012). Gender differences on information literacy of science and engineering undergraduates. International Journal of Modern Education and Computer Science, 4(2), 23–30. https://doi.org/10.5815/ijmecs.2012.02.04
Gorichanaz, T. (2020). Information experience in theory and design. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Quezada-Espinoza, M., Dominguez, A., & Zavala, G. (2025, June 22). A decade of research on women in engineering: A systematic mapping study. 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition. https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--55357
