Broad exploration or precise specificity: Two basic information seeking patterns among students

Jannica Heinström

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2006, vol. 57, issue 11, 1440-1450

Abstract: This article investigates whether information seeking patterns can be related to discipline differences, study approaches, and personality traits. A quantitative study of 305 master's thesis students' information behavior found that their information seeking tended to be either exploratory or precise. Statistical analyses showed that inner traits seemed more influential than discipline characteristics on information behavior. Exploration or specificity was manifested in terms of both the level and scope of information students wished to retrieve and the way they searched for it.

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.20432

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jamist:v:57:y:2006:i:11:p:1440-1450

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1532-2890

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology from Association for Information Science & Technology
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().