Instructional Experience and Teaching Identities - How Academic Librarians’ Years of Teaching Experience Impact their Perceptions of Themselves as Educators

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by kopisore

As academic librarians’ instructional responsibilities evolve, factors shape how they view their teaching identities. Using a survey instrument grounded in transformative learning theory, the study compares librarians across varying years of instructional experience to assess differences in beliefs about identity development. Results show that years of teaching experience influence whether librarians feel their educator identity is shaped by peers or by people outside the profession. More experienced librarians also report that changes in responsibilities affect their instructional identities more often, supporting leaders in designing meaningful learning opportunities.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages29

Reading Time1 h 13 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Literature Review

Adult learning and andragogy

Transformative learning and perspective transformation

Communications in Information Literacy Volume 14 Issue 2 Article 1 2020 Instructional Experience and Teaching Identities: How Academic Librarians’ Years of Experience in Instruction Impact their Perceptions of Themselves as Educators Amanda Nichols Hess Oakland University, [nichols@oakland.edu](nichols@oakland.edu) Follow this and additional works at: [https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/comminfolit](https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/comminfolit) Let us know how access to this document benefits you. Recommended Citation 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/](https://doi.org/10.15760/)[ ](https://doi.org/10.15760/)[comminfolit.2020.14.2.1](comminfolit.2020.14.2.1) This open access Research Article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4 .0) . All documents in PDXScholar should meet accessibility standards. If we can make this document more accessible to you, contact our team. Instructional Experience and Teaching Identities: How Academic Librarians’ Years of Teaching Experience Impact Their Perceptions of Themselves as Educators Amanda Nichols Hess, Oakland University Abstract As academic librarians’ instructional responsibilities evolve, it is useful to consider what factors influence how they consider their teacher identities. In this research, the author used a survey instrument grounded in transformative learning theory to explore whether librarians with varying years of experience in instruction held different beliefs about how their teaching identities had developed. She found that individuals' years of teaching experience impacted whether fellow librarians or those outside of librarianship influenced how they thought of themselves as educators. Moreover, academic librarians who had more experience indicated that changes in their job responsibilities impacted their instructional identities at greater rates than their less experienced counterparts. Understanding these influences can help library leaders to design, provide, and facilitate meaningful learning opportunities for instruction librarians. Keywords: academic librarians, information literacy instruction, perspective transformation, teacher identity, years of experience, time in librarianship Nichols Hess, A. (2020). Instructional experience and teaching identities: How academic librarians’years of teaching experience impact their perceptions of themselves as educators. Communications in Information Literacy, 14(2), 153–180. Instructional Experience and Teaching Identities: How Academic Librarians’ Years of Teaching Experience Impact Their Perceptions of Themselves as Educators As academic librarians across diverse institutions engage in a range of information literacy instructional responsibilities, they may find it relevant to consider how they think of their roles in such instructional interactions. If librarians can better understand what it means tobe a librarian-educator and, more specifically, whether certain factors influence librarians with different levels of teaching experience, library leaders and the profession more broadly can better support teaching librarians and information literacy instruction. In this research, the author examined whether academic librarians’ years of instructional experiences influenced how they thought of themselves as educators. The relationships identified may help librarians to more effectively develop their own instructional self-concepts as they design and provide meaningful 21st century learning opportunities. Literature Review The first piece in understanding what factors influence instruction librarians’ senses of themselves as educators is to acknowledge how

FAQs

What research method was used to examine academic librarians’ teaching identities?

The author used a survey instrument grounded in transformative learning theory to compare librarians with different years of instructional experience.

How do years of teaching experience affect librarians’ perceptions of themselves as educators?

The study found that years of teaching experience influence whether librarians view their educator identity as shaped by fellow librarians or by those outside librarianship.

Do experienced librarians experience changes in responsibilities differently?

Yes. Librarians with more experience reported that changes in job responsibilities affected their instructional identities at greater rates than their less experienced counterparts.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by kopisore