Author ORCID Identifier
Date Available
12-11-2025
Year of Publication
2025
Document Type
Doctoral Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
College
Communication and Information
Department/School/Program
Communication
Faculty
Maria Cahill
Faculty
Renee Kaufmann
Abstract
Undergraduate students sometimes encounter material objects as information resources in small-group classroom learning activities. Examples include art, artifacts, specimens, and anatomical models. This dissertation sought to identify common features of the students’ information practices in such situations, regardless of the activity’s discipline or content, and to explore how making material information central shapes students’ information practices. The conceptual framework combined theorizations of materiality and information practices. Methods involved video recording students doing a variety of simulated classroom activities with objects, video elicitation, qualitative content analysis, and praxiographic interpretation. The praxiographic interpretive descriptions illustrated how all aspects of the site–material, bodily, spatial, temporal, social, individual, and telic–were involved in the students’ group information work, as sources of affordances, friction, and information. The findings described five ways that the site aspects were amplified within the students’ information practices when material information resources were central and four ways the students’ information landscapes were fractured. The discussion examined implications for thinking about undergraduate student information literacy and suggested best practices for instructors who want to teach with objects.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2025.543
Recommended Citation
Miller, Christopher A., "The Information Practices of Undergraduates Encountering Material Objects as Information Resources in Classroom Learning Tasks" (2025). Theses and Dissertations--Communication. 144.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/comm_etds/144
Included in
Interpersonal and Small Group Communication Commons, Library and Information Science Commons, Museum Studies Commons
