Information Seeking Behavior of Graduate Students

Journal article reviewed in this paper:

Hyldegard, Jette (2008). Beyond the search process – Exploring group members’ information behavior in context. Information Processing and Management 45 (2009) 142-158. http://dx.doi.org.proxy2.library.uiuc.edu/10.1016/j.ipm.2008.05.007

Introduction

This paper reports the findings of a case study, which considered Kuhltau’s information seeking process, the (ISP)-Model, in a group based in an academic setting. According to Hyldegard, implicit in many other information process studies is the assumption that the information seeker is an individual. His team set out in this study to look into the impact of contextual and situational factors of a group on the information seeking behavior of group members. The stated purpose of the study was to explore if group members would behave differently from the individual modeled in the ISP-model and why.

Methods

The study was conducted at the Royal School of Library and Information Science in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2007. Three groups of students were observed, two groups consisted of three students each and the third included four students. The class, including these students, was assigned a group project. Study participants were interviewed by researchers at three stages of the project -- beginning, middle and conclusion. Additionally, students were required to maintain regular diaries of all activities throughout the assignment. Student feelings, thoughts and actions were recorded and described in the diaries and interviews.

The research team measured the influence of activities in terms of three aspects: feelings (affective), thoughts (cognitive) and actions (physical) on individual group members during completion of various tasks required by the assignment. The researchers paired the six stages of the ISP-model with the associated expected feelings as follows: Initiation - uncertainty, Selection - optimism, Exploration - confusion/frustration/doubt, Formulation - clarity, Collection - sense of direction/confidence, and Presentation - satisfaction or disappointment. The interviews and diaries were used to measure if and to what extent each of these feelings were present at each stage of the project.

The impact of the work process dimension (focus formulation) and the group process dimension (working with others) on the information seeking process dimension of individual students were measured. This enabled the researchers to view the information seeking process within the context of the group assignment.

Findings

The study showed that the group setting did impact individuals in cognitive and affective ways that influence information seeking behaviors differently than predicted by the ISP-model. In fact, the influences were noticed in all three project dimensions observed in the study. A particularly interesting feature of working in a group is introduced when members have to depend on others to fulfill segments of the information seeking process. This feature influenced feelings of satisfaction or dissatisfaction and confidence or uncertainty, depending on the actions of others.

Additional conclusions showed the general stages of information seeking, the cognitive pattern associated with focus formulation and the tendency towards an increase in writing while searching decreased as the project progressed were similar between group members and the individual in Kuhltau’s ISP-model. The research also concluded that group based problem solving seems to be a dynamic process that shifts between a group perspective and an individual perspective. Lastly, this activity is further influenced by contextual and social factors beyond the mere information seeking process.

Hyldegard posits that the ISP-model does not fully comply with group members’ problem solving process and the involved information seeking behavior. He suggests further, based on these findings, that academic problem solving seems to be even more complex when it is performed in a group based setting.

Design Implications

The study itself identifies several important limitations. My additional observations are that this study observed activities of very small groups. A study design covering larger groups could amplify these findings or even uncover new information about information seeking behaviors, but studying larger groups might also add complexities beyond its effectiveness.
Knowing that the study is being conducted potentially influences behavior. It doesn’t appear that any steps were taken to establish a “control” group. That may not even be possible, since the study of human subjects requires some prior notification, but the issue is an important consideration.