The cultivation and promotion of scientific research literacy of graduate students is the key to the sustainability of scientific development and technological innovation in the new era. Understanding influencing factors of scientific research literacy of graduate students has important implications for graduate education. With information management graduate students as a case, this paper integrates academic self-efficacy into scientific research literacy, employing the grounded theory method to conduct three levels of data coding. In the process of open coding, 243 initial concepts and 23 basic categories were elicited. In the process of axial coding, 5 main categories were elicited. In the process of selective coding, graduate students' scientific research literacy was identified as the core category, and the theoretical model of impacting factors of graduate students' scientific research literacy is developed. It is found that individual internal driving forces, others' driving forces, environmental driving forces and scientific research experience have direct impacts on graduate students' scientific research literacy. Individual internal driving forces and scientific research experience have mediating effects.