information seeking behavior and context

282 Pages·2010·3.23 MB·English

IN FO RM ATIO N S EE KIN G BE H AV IO R AN D
C ON TEX T: THE ORE TIC A L FR AME WOR KS
AN D AN EMP IR IC AL S TU D Y O F S OURCE
U SE

NARESH KUMAR AGARWAL

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

2009
IN FO RM ATIO N S EE KIN G BE H AV IO R AN D
C ON TEX T: THE ORE TIC A L FR AME WOR KS
AN D AN EMP IR IC AL S TU D Y O F S OURCE
U SE

NARESH KUMAR AGARWAL
(B.A.Sc. (Comp. Engg.) Hons., NTU)

A THESIS SUBMITTED
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS
SCHOOL OF COMPUTING
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE
2009
A C KN O WLED GEME NTS
This PhD journey has been a turning point in my life. It helped streamline my life in
the direction it was meant for. When it comes to thanking, faces and names flash up in
a moving cloud. Let me try and list the most prominent names in the cloud:
(cid:1) My supervisor, A/Prof Danny C.C. Poo for supporting me throughout – for
training me on all aspects of academic life
(cid:1) My co-supervisor, Dr Yunjie (Calvin) Xu, without whom this research
wouldn’t have been possible
(cid:1) My evaluators and reviewers, whose comments have helped improve my work
(cid:1) Senior researchers Professor Brenda Dervin (Ohio State University), Professor
Tom D. Wilson (University of Sheffield), Professor Nicholas J. Belkin
(Rutgers University), Professor Donald Owen Case (University of Kentucky),
among several others, whose work I’ve been inspired by
(cid:1) Dr Pan Shan Ling, for being a mentor and guide, for training me as a reviewer,
and for his uninhibited praise before others in international conferences
(cid:1) Professors, who through their courses, trained me on various areas of research
– Dr Caisy Hung Yu-Ting (provided the first training on paper reading, review
and analysis), A/Prof Teo Hock Hai (IS research methodologies), A/Prof John
Lim Lai Huat (IS theories/IS research methodologies), Dr Pan Shan Ling (case
study research), Dr Yunjie (Calvin) Xu (Quantitative Methods), among others
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(cid:1) Prof Bernard Tan, whose advice I’ll remember – that there is only one thing
one needs to do consistently to be successful, and that is to recognize (and deal
with) one’s own mistakes faster than what others would do
(cid:1) The excellent support staff of School of Computing – Ang Cheng Lian, for
being there, Kwok-Gwee Siew Ing, for processing travel claims, Theresa Koh
for ensuring vegetarian food during lunches, Devi for her affectionate concern
(cid:1) Project group mates – Manisha Kathuria, Shantanu Singh, among others who
exemplified what great teams are made of
(cid:1) Lab mates, Yu Xiaohui, Faezeh Karimi, Lek Hsiang Hui and other Honors
year students over the years who have been a joy to know and be with
(cid:1) Friends and well-wishers – Rohit Joshi, for advising me on getting to NUS;
Prateek Prakash, Rakesh Gupta and Pawan Pandey, for helping me decide
between an enticing industry job offer and a PhD
(cid:1) Those who assisted me in the data gathering and entering process – Sumeet
Nagdev, Shivajee Dewangan, Yu Xiaohui, Faezeh Karimi, Kevin Neo Yong
Sheng, among others, as well as the 352 people who responded to the survey
(cid:1) Numerous other people who are too many to list, but whose names and
contributions shall remain with me
(cid:1) Last, but most importantly, my wife, Archana, for her support and sense of
independence, which allowed me to take this path; for her bravery in handling
7 months of pregnancy all alone; and for the beautiful Eesha, who was born
just in time to see her father get a PhD.
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TABLE OF CO NTENT S
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................. I
TABLE OF CONTENTS ..................................................................................................................... III
SUMMARY ..................................................................................................................................... V
LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................................... VIII
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................................ X
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND MOTIVATION .......................................................................... 1
1.1 Related Concepts .............................................................................................................. 2
1.2 Review of the Information Seeking & Information Retrieval Fields .................................... 8
1.3 Motivation and Research Contribution of Study 1 ........................................................... 11
1.4 Motivation and Research Contribution of Study 2 ........................................................... 14
1.5 Organization of the Thesis .............................................................................................. 17
STUDY 1 – TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED FRAMEWORK OF INFORMATION SEEKING
AND INFORMATION RETRIEVAL ............................................................................................ 19
CHAPTER 2 TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED FRAMEWORK OF INFORMATION SEEKING AND
INFORMATION RETRIEVAL............................................................................................................. 20
2.1 Review or theory? ........................................................................................................... 21
2.2 Towards an Integrated Framework ................................................................................. 21
2.3 Existing Models and their mappings to the Integrated framework .................................... 23
2.4 Process of deriving the framework .................................................................................. 37
2.5 Simplified Framework .................................................................................................... 38
2.6 Framework or causal model? ......................................................................................... 40
2.7 Other limitations? .......................................................................................................... 41
2.8 Framework or Methodology?.......................................................................................... 42
2.9 Summary of Study 1 ........................................................................................................ 46
STUDY 2 – A CONTEXT-BASED INVESTIGATION INTO SOURCE USE BY
INFORMATION SEEKERS .......................................................................................................... 49
CHAPTER 3 INVESTIGATING SOURCE USE: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS OF CONTEXT ............. 50
3.1 Investigating Source Use by Information Seekers ............................................................ 50
3.1.1 Theoretical Approach ............................................................................................................ 53
3.2 Delineating the boundary of 'context' in Information Behavior: Towards a Contextual
Identity Framework ................................................................................................................. 59
3.2.1 Definitions of Context ........................................................................................................... 60
3.2.2 Boundary of Context: Contextual Identity Framework ............................................................ 63
3.2.3 Personal Context or ‘My’ context ........................................................................................... 65
3.2.4 Shared context or ‘Our’ Context............................................................................................. 66
3.2.5 Context Stereotype or ‘His’ / ‘Her’ / ‘Their’ Context .............................................................. 74
3.2.6 Relationship between the three views ..................................................................................... 78
3.2.7 Summary of the Contextual Identity Framework ..................................................................... 83
3.3 A Theoretical Framework of Elements of Context ............................................................ 86
3.3.1 Framework of Elements of Context ........................................................................................ 87
3.3.2 Elements of Personal Context ................................................................................................ 92
3.3.3 Elements of Shared Context ................................................................................................... 96
3.3.4 Elements from Interaction between Personal and Shared Contexts .......................................... 99
3.3.5 Elements of Interaction between the three views of context ................................................... 103
3.3.6 Elements of interaction between personal and stereotype/shared contexts .............................. 105
3.3.7 Elements of interaction between shared and stereotype contexts ............................................ 105
3.3.8 Elements of Context Stereotype (or Shared context) ............................................................. 107
CHAPTER 4 EMPIRICAL RESEARCH MODEL AND HYPOTHESES ............................................... 109
4.1 Research Model and Hypotheses ................................................................................... 111
4.2 Source Variables .......................................................................................................... 114
4.2.1 Types of Sources ................................................................................................................. 114
4.2.2 Source Use .......................................................................................................................... 121
4.2.3 Source Quality .................................................................................................................... 122
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4.2.4 Access difficulty.................................................................................................................. 123
4.2.5 Communication Difficulty ................................................................................................... 126
4.3 Problem Situation / Task Variables ............................................................................... 127
4.3.1 Importance of the Task / Problem Situation .......................................................................... 127
4.3.2 Urgency of the Task / Problem Situation .............................................................................. 128
4.3.3 Complexity of the Task / Problem Situation ......................................................................... 129
4.4 Seeker / Actor Variables ............................................................................................... 132
4.4.1 Seeker’s Learning Orientation .............................................................................................. 132
4.4.2 Control Variables pertaining to Seeker ................................................................................. 133
4.5 Environment Variables ................................................................................................. 134
4.5.1 Learning Environment ......................................................................................................... 134
4.5.2 Other control variables pertaining to Environment ................................................................ 135
4.6 Seeker / Source Relationship Variable........................................................................... 135
4.6.1 Inherent Lack of Comfort .................................................................................................... 136
CHAPTER 5 METHODOLOGY AND FINDINGS........................................................................... 138
5.1 Research Design ........................................................................................................... 138
5.2 Instrument Development and Data Collection ............................................................... 139
5.2.1 Operationalization of Constructs .......................................................................................... 139
5.2.2 Conceptual Validation ......................................................................................................... 140
5.2.3 Pre-test................................................................................................................................ 143
5.2.4 Face Validity ....................................................................................................................... 144
5.2.5 Pilot Test............................................................................................................................. 144
5.2.6 Final Questionnaire ............................................................................................................. 145
5.2.7 Main Data Collection........................................................................................................... 147
5.2.8 Demographic Data ............................................................................................................... 149
5.3 Data Analysis and Results ............................................................................................ 150
5.3.1 Pilot Data ............................................................................................................................ 151
5.3.2 Main Study ......................................................................................................................... 153
5.3.3 Measurement Model Testing (Confirmatory Factor Analysis) ............................................... 157
5.3.4 Hypothesis Test ................................................................................................................... 160
5.3.5 Post-hoc analysis ................................................................................................................. 168
5.4 A brief Qualitative Analysis of the Tasks, Information Sought and the Sources listed by
respondents ........................................................................................................................... 171
CHAPTER 6 DISCUSSION, LIMITATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS .................................................... 174
6.1 Discussion .................................................................................................................... 174
6.2 Limitations and Future Research .................................................................................. 186
6.3 Implications ................................................................................................................. 189
6.4 Summary of Empirical Survey Study ............................................................................. 196
CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSION AND FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS ............................................. 198
7.1 Future Research Directions .......................................................................................... 200
REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................. A
APPENDIX A - ITEMS FOR CONSTRUCTS IN THE RESEARCH MODEL (SURVEY) ................................. AA
APPENDIX B - CHANGES TO SURVEY ITEMS AFTER SORTING EXERCISES .......................................... DD
APPENDIX C – FINAL SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE................................................................... GG
APPENDIX D – DEMOGRAPHIC DATA ............................................................................................ KK
APPENDIX E – EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS OF PILOT DATA ................................................. OO
APPENDIX F – DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS AND RELIABILITY ANALYSIS ............................................ VV
APPENDIX G – CONVERGENT VALIDITY ANALYSIS ........................................................................ YY
APPENDIX H – DISCRIMINANT VALIDITY ANALYSIS...................................................................... EEE
APPENDIX I – POST-HOC ANALYSIS ............................................................................................ GGG
APPENDIX J – QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF TASKS & INFORMATION SOUGHT ...............................MMM
APPENDIX K – QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF TYPICAL SOURCES SPECIFIED BY RESPONDENTS ........ OOO

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S U MM ARY
‘Information seeking’, ‘context’ and ‘source use’ – these three phrases constitute the
core of this thesis. Information seeking may be understood as a conscious effort to
acquire information in response to a need/gap in our knowledge. All those factors that
surround and influence information seeking behavior may be loosely understood as
context. An information source can be defined as a carrier of information (e.g. a
person, a book, a search engine, etc.). The first phrase (information seeking)
contributes an integrated theoretical framework (Study 1). The second term (context)
forms the basis for two theoretical frameworks. The third phrase (source use), along
with ‘context’, leads to an empirical study utilizing a questionnaire survey (Study 2).
Study 1 - Towards an Integrated Framework of Information Seeking and
Information Retrieval. In the first theoretical study, we1 present an integrated
framework synthesizing a large number of models/frameworks from the person-
centric field of information seeking (that looks at the information needs of the user,
the process of seeking and the searcher context) and the system-centric field of
information retrieval (concentrating on technology aspects such as search
engines/interfaces/algorithms). This process of synthesis could also serve as a
methodological move for convergence of research in any field, whereby the work of a
particular theorist is taken and other theories and models mapped to it. Designed to
serve as one of the most comprehensive frameworks in the field of information

1 Even though a PhD thesis symbolizes the culmination of years of effort in the PhD journey, I am not comfortable
using ‘I’, for that would mean negating the contribution of my PhD supervisors and numerous others who have
helped make this possible. Thus, in all the places where you would expect to see ‘I’, I have used the more inclusive
‘we’.
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behavior, the framework will contribute to theory development and be useful to
practitioners and designers of information systems for research. It would help in
understanding past studies in the wider context of the field, as well as in the design of
new empirical studies. Our second study provides one such design based on elements
from this integrated framework.
Study 2 - A Context-based Investigation into Source Use by Information Seekers.
An important question in information seeking behavior is where do people go for
information and how do people decide on which information source to use when
faced with an information-seeking task or need for information. Some studies have
reported that seekers use the information source that is most easily accessible. Other
studies have found that people go for the source with the highest quality. The
empirical survey study seeks to address these conflicting findings by incorporating
variables from the ‘context’ surrounding information seeking that impact a person’s
use of one or more information sources. However, this required facing difficult
questions on what ‘context’ really means and what its boundaries are. This difficulty
was resolved by proposing theoretical frameworks 1) to define the boundaries of
context and 2) to list the variables that make up context. This was followed by a
survey study of 352 working professionals in Singapore to study the role of these
contextual factors in determining a person's use of information source. The study
found that upon incorporating contextual variables, quality (benefit) was certainly the
important factor in the use of a source. Accessibility (cost) was perceived by the
seeker to be unimportant but was actually found to be important as well.
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Keywords. Information Seeking Behavior; Context; Contextual Identity Framework;
Elements of Context; Source Use; Integrated Framework; Information
Searching/Retrieval; Sense-making; Cost/Benefit; Least Effort
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LI ST OF TABLES
Table 1 Propositions/hypotheses derived from the model ................................................................... 39
Table 2 Comparison between the three views of context .................................................................... 78
Table 3 Contextual Identity Framework mapped to Courtright (2007)’s classification ........................ 79
Table 4 Environmental variables studied in workplace / everyday life settings ................................... 98
Table 5 Bhavani et al. (2001) Taxonomy of tasks ............................................................................ 101
Table 6 Studies of Task or Problem Situation as an element of context ............................................ 102
Table 7 Task Variables ................................................................................................................... 102
Table 8 Factors of information required........................................................................................... 104
Table 9 Variables ............................................................................................................................ 112
Table 10 Classification of Information Sources ............................................................................... 115
Table 11 Initial classification of sources .......................................................................................... 116
Table 12 Classification of Source/Channel Types in the survey study .............................................. 117
Table 13 Simplified view of source/channel types along dimensions ................................................ 119
Table 14 Definition of Constructs.................................................................................................... 139
Table 15 Results of Unstructured Sorting Exercise .......................................................................... 141
Table 16 Results of Structured Sorting Exercise .............................................................................. 143
Table 17 Sample Size of Pilot Data across Source types .................................................................. 144
Table 18 Sample Size of Main Data across Source types.................................................................. 148
Table 19 Number of source types chosen by survey respondents ...................................................... 148
Table 20 Items with communalities < 0.7 ........................................................................................ 153
Table 21 Comparing the means across different source types ........................................................... 154
Table 22 Ranking of sources on different parameters ....................................................................... 155
Table 23 Summary of overall fit indices across 5 source types ......................................................... 160
Table 24 Model specified (in equation format) for HLM analysis .................................................... 164
Table 25 Results from HLM analysis .............................................................................................. 165
Table 26 Ranking of source types on different aspects of use ........................................................... 186
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