Cadets, Critical Thinking and Lifelong Learning: Faculty-Library Collaboration in Professional Military Education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15845/norsotl.5044Keywords:
Critical thinking, educational collaboration, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), embedded librarianship, professional military education (PME)Abstract
Professional higher education programs increasingly emphasize the development of critical thinking, information literacy and evidence-based decisions. Using the SoTL-approach, we have explored how information literacy taught by librarians can be integrated into the military officer education to support the cadets' learning and critical interaction with information leading to better decisions. While academic libraries are increasingly recognised as educational partners in civilian higher education, their role in military academic contexts remains underexplored and often reduced to technical resource provision. Through reflexive thematic analysis of interviews with military and civilian faculty, this study investigates how library teaching can be purposefully embedded into the Norwegian Defence University College (NDUC) bachelor programmes. The analysis identifies three refined themes: Information literacy and academic development; Pedagogical collaboration through embedded librarianship; Contextual relevance for critical thinking. These findings suggest that librarians collaborating with faculty staff can contribute to support development of academic skills, information literacy, and critical inquiry. The study highlights the importance of librarians’ professional adaptability and contextual understanding of the military professional domain, arguing that meaningful integration requires active participation in curriculum planning and pedagogical collaboration. By conceptualising the library as a pedagogical partner rather than a support service, the article contributes to ongoing debates on the academisation of officer education and the evolving professional identity of librarians in a military context. The study provides empirical insights to how embedded librarianship may be operationalised in military higher education and offers perspectives that might be of relevance also beyond a military context.
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