Microdescriptions of Information Searching Behavior
1987
The three
domains of library
user behavior are comprehensive, encompassing the entire range of human
behavior as described in contemporary psychology. Overt acts
(psychomotor) are
seen as effects or consequences of prior inner acts, specifically,
mental acts
(cognitive), and motivational acts of the will (affective). For
example, the
perceptual and motor action of pressing a function key on an online
catalog
(psychomotor domain), is the result of knowing and understanding online
function keys (cognitive domain), which is placed under the control of
the
motive to find a needed reference (affective domain). The interaction
between
feelings (affective domain), thoughts (cognitive domain), and actions
(psychomotor-domain)
is the subject of modern theories in psychology. 3
In general, the current content of orientation courses and library
proficiency
tests covers the cognitive domain for the most part, and to some
extent,
involves the psychomotor domain. 4 The affective domain in library use
has
received less attention, though some writers are clearly aware that the
library
user has feelings and
that these affect the search process. 5 The concept of affective
library search
errors recognizes that users' freedom of access to information is
restricted by
irrational fears or unreasonable frust-rations. This becomes evident
when
inspecting user self-reports, as in the following samples:
"I was totally lost when I first walked into Hamilton."
"I can tell you that I had great apprehensions at the thought of having
to
do a library research paper."
"It shocked me to visit a library with five floors compared with one
floor, and I felt that I was in another world."
"Two weeks ago I walked into the library lost and confused."
"Here is another description of the hectic time I spent looking for
information on diet."
"I was frustrated when many of the articles that I looked up in the
indexes were in magazines not carried at the library."
"The most frustrating thing was trying to look for articles in the
indexes."
"Walking around the library with a dazed and confused look on my face
wasn't unusual."
The implication of this evidence is that library services need to
explicitly
take into account the affective behavior of users as well as their
cognitive
strategies and psychomotor actions. 6 Many issues need to be
investigated to
determine the validity of such an approach for library science,
specifically,
and cognitive psychology generally. The following represent some of
these issues:
What are the limits of this threefold
taxonomy and
can all forms of user behavior be classified?
What are the levels of complexity of
skills within
each of the three domains?
Do all searchers follow the same
developmental steps
in the acquisition of library proficiency?
Are errors identifiable?
How are affective errors different from
cognitive
errors?
What are the search components of carrying
out a
library research assignment?
What are the effects of prolonged library
use on
information-seeking habits?
These research
questions can
only be answered through longitudinal studies that monitor a cohort's
behavior
over a significant time span covering months or years.
This research proposes the intensive monitoring of the library use
behavior of
a small group of undergraduate and graduate students over a period of
several
semesters. Our goal is to capture, in behavioral terms, a larger and
more
detailed unit of the process of information seeking than would
ordinarily be
possible in the usual short term experiment. Students will keep records
of what
feelings, thoughts, and actions occur when they use the library. This
type of
detailed, cumulative, and longitudinal data has never been reported in
the
library or cognitive literature, yet they are needed if we are to
discover the
actual psychological processes involved in searching. It takes weeks
and months
to complete a research assignment or to acquire proficiency in
connection with
specific library systems and tools. Longitudinal data are required to
capture
the developmental steps of becoming a library user. Comparison of
records
across successive weeks and months will reveal graduated changes in
their
knowledge, ability, and perspective. The records kept by students will
yield
evidence on the cumulative changes and the specific stages of acquiring
proficiency with the most widespread information tools used by college
students
and professionals in the sciences and in the humanities. Records will
cover
repeated use of: card catalog, COM catalog, and online catalog
periodical
indexes, InfoTrac, Magazine Index, newspaper indexes citation indexes,
pecial
collections subject heading indexes, government documents, and others.
Clearly,
learning how to use complex information tools develops over a
significant time
period. Thus, we need data to show what these improvements are, and in
what
order they occur. Is there a sequence to errors and are they avoidable?
How
does a particular search tool affect the progress and outcome of a
search? Is
there a development-al pattern to search skills and can it be
accelerated? What
is the range of individual differences in rate of acquisition, errors
made, and
strategies used?
SUMMARY OF
PREVIOUS
WORK
Researchers in the fields of librarianship, education, psychology, and
information
and decision science over the past thirty years have stressed the
necessity for
systematic investigations of the decision-making steps, thought
sequences, and
actions people carry out when searching for a solution to a particular
problem.
In the
case of librarianship a search for specific information in the library
may be
regarded as a problem-solving activity that is rational and
goal-directed.
Problem-solving involves a sequence of goal-directed behaviors
performed by the
searcher, either visibly (actions and verbalizations) or invisibly
(feelings
and thoughts). In order to make thought processes visible, researchers
developed techniques such as "protocol analysis," "thinking
aloud problem-solving records," recording "verbal protocols" or
"research journals" in which a subject thinks aloud into a tape
recorder while solving a problem, thus making explicit the usually
implicit
decisions and reasoning strategies. 7
This method of generating data on higher mental processes is fruitful
because
we can explicitly determine:
How these data relate to overt actions
taken by
problem solvers
What skills are involved in searching for
solutions
What types of errors are made, and at
which point
How errors could have been avoided
What alternatives are seen and used
Hence, by
employing a method
of self-verbalizing, or articulating the inner speech produced during a
library
search, we can obtain empirical documentation of the steps involved in
the
search. We can thus come to an understanding of what a library user
must go
through step-by-step in seeking and finding information in the library.
The pioneering work of Ericsson and Simon on "protocol analysis" has
established the viability of verbal reports as data on search processes
and
problem-solving activities. 8 Successful programs for improving
students'
academic abilities have made use of the technique of vocalizing while
attempting to solve a logical or semantic problem. 9 The field of
clinical
psychology has combined cognitive-behavioral approaches in the
development of
articulated inner speech for the purpose of self-regulation of
behavior.
Clients are taught specific self-regulatory commands which they are to
say or
think at specified times, thereby gaining conscious control over
undesirable
overt habitual behaviors. 10 Our aim is to apply these techniques of
verbalizing on-going acts, thoughts, and feelings to library search
behavior.
In the library and information science literature, almost all research
efforts
are thus far limited to man-system compatibility in online information
retrieval. 11 Data on online search processes have been obtained from
print-out
histories of searches called - "transaction logs," from pre- and
post-search interviews, from questionnaires administered after
searches, and from
notes made by subjects during searches. Penniman refers to his
techniques as
"protocol analysis of user transcripts." 12 Chapman refers to her
method of search print-out analysis as "state transition analysis,"
where a state is defined as a different phase in the search as
searching
proceeds from command to command to the end results. Thus she developed
a way
of looking at patterns of commands used in searching to get to the goal
of
retrieving relevant titles. 13 Fenichel analyzed "search transcripts"
for five different groups of users with varying degrees of experience
in online
searching. She identified twelve "search process or search effort
variables" which she used to analyze the print-out histories. 14 Sewell
and Teitlebaum performed analyses of "traffic logs" of searches and
their corresponding print-outs. 15 Marcus reported on a technique
termed
"search effectiveness analysis" involving "unobtrusive
monitoring" of user activity, print-out analysis of the search, notes
provided by the searcher made during or
directly after the search, an interview with the searcher regarding
their
rationale for the search strategy used, problems encountered, and
ratings of
the usefulness of the search session. 16 Satisfaction ratings were
obtained by
a number of researchers, to contrast searching by end-user or by
intermediaries, to rate the effectiveness of services provided, and to
rate
users' perceptions of their own search skills. 17 A "critical thinking
scheme" was used by Ford to analyze the content of taped interviews
with
student searchers made after they completed research assignments. 18
The research of Ingwersen and colleagues in Denmark deserves special
mention
here. 19 They developed both a macro and micro level analysis of
transcripts of
verbal protocols obtained by subjects talking out loud into a tape
recorder
while searching in a public library for an assigned tasks. Though their
research is programmatic and on-going we plan to make use of some of
their
techniques in the analysis of our own data. It is clear to us that their
work could significantly advanced through (a) a classification scheme
such as
the one we use in this research, and (b) the investigation of
developmental
search patters, as in our longitudinal approach.
PROPOSED
RESEARCH
Our proposed research goes beyond any of these studies in the following
ways:
(a) our data yield longitudinal information on the cumulative changes
experienced by library users over a period of several semesters, with a
variety
of repeated and integrated search tasks;
(b) our approach yields information on how users integrate their
experience
with a number of different cognitive systems or search tools with which
they
come into contact in the course of two semesters of college or graduate
study;
(c) our data yield information on the long-term acquisition of specific
search
tools from novice to advanced;
(d) our data yield a level of detail not available before since we are
obtaining very detailed self-descriptive statements or
"microdescriptions" from subjects trained in self-observation who
dictate into a tape recorder while the activity is in progress, and
exactly
parallel to it;
(e) our analysis employs a systematic classification system of
self-reports
based on an explicit theory of user behavior and yields information on
the
totality of user behavior--motivational or affective, rational or
cognitive,
perceptual, sensory, motor, and verbal ("Psychomotor").
Self-Witnessing Technique.
This is a systematic method of self observation which we have employed
for
several years as part of our teaching approach in social psychology. It
requires a person to become a "witness" or an audience to one's own
activity and on-going thoughts and feelings, and to record them at the
time
they occur. We have experimented with various techniques for training
students
to do accurate "microdescriptions" of their ordinary everyday
activities, and the use of discourse analysis or content analysis for
their
evaluation. 20 We have used a number of different formats to prompt
student
responses and have found that presenting model responses (either
idealized or
actual copies by talented students) is effective. We propose to apply
this
self-witnessing technique to obtain information on the actual in vivo
library
activities of users.
In obtaining self-reports we must decide the extent to which we are to
specify
the area, topic or focus of the microdescriptions to be given by
searchers. 21
At one end of the spectrum, minimum instructions are given, for
example,
"Describe what you did or how it went." This yields variable results,
with some students having very little to say and others alot. 22 At the
other
end of the spectrum, responses are guided by a series of detailed and
integrated questions or prompts, sequenced by us so that the
microdescriptions
form a logical and comprehensive account of some activity. In between
these
two, various degrees of specificity of prompts can be used. One such
format is
to direct students to report on the obstacles they encountered in an
activity
and the solutions they came up with (e.g., Obstacle: "The Information
desk
didn't have Guide 112." Solution: "I was referred to the Reference
desk where I obtained a copy.").
Another format instructs users to report on and contrast their external
dialog
with a reference librarian to their internal dialog or discourse
thinking
sequence (e.g., External Dialog: "Excuse me, am I interrupting you?"
Internal Dialog: "I really am nervous. What's wrong with me. I
shouldn't
feel strange about asking for help." ...and so on). In a more complex
format, we trained students first, to distinguish between the three
domains of
behavior (Affective, Cognitive, Psychomotor) using lectures and models,
and
second, to report on these three aspects of one's behavior in executing
a
particular search task (e.g., Affective: What is your intention or
motive and
what pressures are you experiencing? Cognitive: What search procedures
are you
following? Psychomotor: What are you noticing, saying, or doing?).
We have also experimented with self-witnessing reports produced in the
context
of a dyadic exchange. One person executes the steps of a search while
the
partner takes notes on the movements of the searcher, and asks
questions or
gives prompts to stimulate the searcher to verbalize out loud specific
aspects
of decision-making and feeling. The exchange is summarized later either
from a
tape recording or from notes taken during the exchange.
Other researchers working with protocol analysis have recognized that
the
usefulness of subjects' verbalizations as data depends on two issues:
first, to
what extent the task of verbalizing interferes with the task of problem
solving, which has to go on at the same time; and second, to what
extent there
is accurate and complete "tracking" by the protocol of the actual
solution process. 23 Our experience with the self-witnessing technique
indicates that there is
no inherent conflict between the task of talking-aloud (into a small,
portable
micro-cassette tape recorder) and the task of performing search
activities in
the library. There is a rapid improvement factor with experience as one
learns
to overcome social inhibitions that tend to be present initially. We
have also
noted individual differences in quantity of verbalizations for similar
tasks.
It appears that many important search activities are naturally
accompanied by
silent verbalizations, or self-regulatory sentences functioning as a
natural
command language, so that the requirement to verbalize out loud is a
relevant
and meaningful task to every searcher. It is possible that producing a
taped
protocol slows down the process of searching, but there is no evidence
that it
distorts it.
METHODS
AND
PROCEDURES
This research approach is designed to be a longitudinal and extensive
study of
learning to use the library within the context of being a college or
graduate
student. The study will generate a database which will provide
empirical
information on many important aspects of search behavior,
problem-solving, and
information processing. Library search tasks will be assigned weekly to
subjects who will be taught to record their actions, decisions, and
feelings
while
carrying out the search for information in the library. A cohort of 20
individuals will constitute the subject sample. They will be assigned
weekly
tasks in the library during which they will dictate into a portable
tape
recorder the feelings, thoughts, and actions that accompany and mediate
the
steps of their ongoing search behavior. The library activities will be
designed
and sequenced so as to yield data on the build up of experience or
expertise
with a variety of information tools and services. The classification
system we
have developed for the analysis of self-witnessing reports allows us to
identify skills and errors in the three general domains of behavior
(affective,
cognitive, psychomotor), and at different levels of expertise (novice
to
advanced or expert). These data have a theoretical importance for
cognitive
psychology generally, and a practical importance for education and the
design
and use of information tools
throughout society.
Selection of Subjects.
Since participation in this longitudinal study involves a commitment in
weekly
time, effort, and interest over a period of several semesters, it is
clear that
a complex selection procedure needs to be put into effect along with
specific
provisions for keeping the attrition rate to a minimum. The following
considerations will guide our activities.
Subjects will be chosen during the preparatory, Stage I, of the study
(first 3
months), after the project's 2 Research Assistants are selected and
trained.
Students will be recruited through announcements placed in the campus
newspaper, the University Bulletin, bulletin boards, class
announcements, and
visits with student groups in campus dormitory halls, clubs, and
organizations.
Participation in the study will be made attractive by explaining the
benefits
participants will derive from the experience, such as the following:
(i) a substantial monetary award of $1,000 to be distributed in three
equal
installments (payable only if the individual executes the weekly
assignments
that will be given);
(ii) a valuable educational opportunity to learn library skills and
receive
special attention and instruction in library research, far beyond what
one
might receive in any single course;
(iii) a potentially rewarding social experience that comes from being
part of a
longitudinal cohort that regularly meets together to discuss a common
task and
to exchange perspectives on it.
All volunteers will be interviewed at least twice, separated by a week
during
which they will receive trial exercises involving activities in the
library and
record keeping on daily-round activities. Preference will be given to
individuals who are capable of being articulate in their thinking aloud
protocols,
show a personal interest or enthusiasm for this type of
self-observation, and
appear to have appropriate academic habits and goals to insure
integrity of
character and respect for accuracy. Our experience with the use of
self-witnessing reports by students at the University of Hawaii shows
that
approximately three quarters would be intellectually capable of
performing
adequately as subjects in this study. This gives us a very large pool
of
potential subjects (about 15,000).
Given the longitudinal and extensive nature of this research approach
the usual
self-selection bias operating in subject selection can be expected to
be
present. We are not aiming for a representative or stratified sample.
Future
research will have to deal with this issue in a more systematic way,
but before
that is feasible much more needs to be done in the development of
appropriate
measurement procedures and in the identification of library skill
acquisition
phenomena. This study will provide substantial information on these
important
issues. We will aim for a cohort that is made up of a variety of
potentially
important treatment variables for future research, namely, area of
interest
(humanities or science), degree of professionalism (undergraduate or
graduate),
type of motivation (course assignment or personal need), intellectual
commitment (career oriented or not), and language background (native or
mixed).
This study will yield extensive longitudinal data. Their importance
lies in
what they reveal about cumulative changes in individuals under a
variety of
human contexts. For the present purposes the cumulative, longitudinal,
and
personologic features are more crucial than the representativeness of
the
sample. Future research must take up these demographic issues.
Schedule of Activities for Subjects.
The data in this study will come from several sources, as follows:
(i) Weekly library assignments to be carried out during which a
thinking-aloud
audio tape is produced in accordance with instructions; audio tapes are
to be
transcribed by paid clerical workers, coded by the Research Assistants
and by
us, and annotated by the subjects who receive a copy of their own
transcripts;
(ii) Weekly interviews or consultation meetings with one of the
Research
Assistants during which information is obtained on subjects' morale,
attitude,
and specific concerns or difficulties;
(iv) Monthly library proficiency tests (written and field-type) which
will
yield quantitative data on the acquisition and growth of library
skills, and on
changes in attitudes towards the library, librarians, and the self as
an
information seeker.
Data Analyses.
The study is designed to yield a database from which data of various
types can
be extracted. We will describe here some of the analyses we anticipate
based on
our pilot studies with the self-witnessing technique.
(a) The Analysis of Skills: What are the common units of search
behavior? These
will emerge from the parsing of microdescriptions by Subjects. For
example:
"deciding to duplicate an article," "selecting a subject
heading," "rejecting a title," "pressing a function
key," and so on. What combination of skills are basic or necessary for
all
search tools? These will be inferred from our expert knowledge about
the
activities attempted by the Subjects. For example: "alpha-numeric
sequencing," "short term memory of symbols and abbreviations,"
"perceptual differentiation between number references to page, entry,
or
date," and so on. Is there a library aptitude? This will be indicated
by
listing which skills overlap across tasks or cluster and intercorrelate
with
each other,
and are transferable or generalizable across various tools and
services. For
example, general skills such as "copying exactly" or
"categorizing new information," and specific skills such as
"keyboard literacy" or "knowledge of a language or period."
An empirical "Typology of Skills" will evolve which summarizes and
classifies the data for the use of other researchers and practitioners.
The
following are some hypotheses of the types we expect:
(i) Universal Skills: these are basic or necessary to all reference
tools,
e.g., spelling, alphabetizing, decoding, differentiating, etc.;
(ii) Difficult Skills: complex skills whose acquisition is accompanied
by
frustration or errors, e.g., remembering which filing rules go with
each of the
three library catalogs (card catalog, COM catalog, and OPAC);
(iii) Advanced Skills: skills whose mastery takes a long time or
requires
frequent repetition, e.g., using the citation indexes;
(iv) Simple Skills: skills whose acquisition occurs immediately and
with few
errors, e.g., learning to use the microfiche reader or looking up a
call
number;
(v) Specialized Skills: skills relating to consulting special
collections in
one's field of study or major, e.g., Hawaiian and Pacific Collection,
Government Documents, etc.;
(vi) Transferable Skills: skills learned in one context or with one
tool that
generalize to another, e.g., keyboard literacy on online catalogs helps
on
InfoTrac;
(vii) Domains of Skills: affective skills, cognitive skills, and
psychomotor
skills. 24
(b) The Analysis of Errors: What are errors? What types are there? What
is the
natural history of errors: Do they drop out automatically with
experience or do
they require active 'stamping out' by conscious articulation or
self-regulatory
instructions (e.g., "I better not do that again!" or "Remember,
Mc = Mac"). Are a person's errors consistent across bibliographic
tools?
For example, if an error with one tool is eliminated, does it recur in
learning
the next tool? Are misconceptions transferred across tools? The
following
"Typology of Errors" represents some of our theoretical expectations:
(i) Idiosyncratic Errors: errors that are committed by few searchers,
e.g.,
confusing letters such as d vs. b or forgetting specific words;
(ii) Common Errors: those committed by many searchers, e.g., looking
under
"International for..." rather than under "International
in...";
(iii) General Errors: these are made with a number of different tools,
e.g.,
miscopying or mistyping a title or number;
(iv) Specific Errors: mistakes one makes with only one type of tool,
e.g.,
pressing the wrong function key on the online catalog, or
pessimistically
assuming a book won't be on its shelf;
(v) Fossilized Errors: those that resist extinction for a long time,
e.g.,
while searching indexes or dictionaries some people resist looking at
the guide
words on top of each page and, instead, ineffectively let their eyes
wander,
randomly scanning the entries on the page;
(vi) Stress Related Errors: mistakes that are made under psychological
stress
or time pressure, but not at other times, e.g., skipping and missing an
entry,
forgetting to write something down, going to the wrong floor, etc.;
(viii) Conditional Errors: these occur only under specifiable search
situations, e.g., when patrons assume they are not supposed to
"bother" librarians, they may give up on a search rather than ask for
help or, when the call number contains a special code ("Ref" or
"F" or "Rare"), users may ignore it at first;
(ix) System Related Errors: errors users commit that can be greatly
reduced by
modifying some library feature, e.g., putting up a certain sign or
altering
software functions;
(x) Culture Related Errors: mistakes made by specifiable ethnic groups
or
sub-cultural populations, e.g., spelling errors by foreign students, or
by the
elderly's inability to read small print.
(c) The Analysis of Protocols: What is a search strategy? What is the
natural
human command language in searching? What self-regulatory sentences
does a
searcher use in thinking? What is a search act? What is its structure?
How can
it be coded and diagrammed? What is its pace, rhythm, or shape when
plotted
across sequence and time? Are there ideal search strategies and how do
they
differ from those that are less well formed? Is there an interaction
between
type of tool and search strategies employed? What changes occur in
one's search
protocol over time and experience? What factors influence a search
protocol
(e.g., amount of experience, type of reference tool, amount of time
available,
complexity of question or information need, etc.). The following
"Typology
of Search Protocols" lists some of the patterns we expect to identify:
(i) Idealized Protocols: suggested procedures extracted from
self-witnessing reports
and taught to patrons or given as models in guides;
(ii) Direct Protocols: search strategies that are recognized by
librarians as
correct, viable, and effective (even if not ideal);
(iii) Circuitous Protocols: search sequences that yield relevant
findings but
use inefficient or faulty sub-routines;
(iv) Complex Protocols: those that require the successful completion of
sub-goals (or sub-searches) and their overall integration (e.g., the
sub-tasks
required to be performed in preparing an annotated bibliography);
(v) Simple Protocols: those that involve a single, one time search
(e.g., ready
reference queries);
(vi) Serendipitous Protocols: those that rely on unpredictable or
fortuitous
'finds';
(vii) Trial and Error Protocols: haphazard search strategies that lack
a
coherent plan;
(viii) Assisted Protocols: search plans that issue from consulting a
librarian
or guide;
(ix) Scanning Protocols: search procedures that require rapid
examination of a
large amount of materials;
(x) Browsing Protocols: search strategies that require brief reading of
key
components in a collection or database (titles, Table of Contents,
Abstracts,
Tables, Figures, Index, beginning paragraphs).
Protocol data can empirically show what the actual units of search
behavior
are. We predict that the relevant units will be smaller (more detailed)
than is
now assumed in the language of tests, guides, and instructions. Besides
their
fundamental theoretical interest for cognitive science, these data
provide
genuine, authentic models of search behavior. They are likely to be of
an
immediate practical significance for library instruction efforts and
information systems design.
Statistical Techniques.
Four types of
dependent
measures are used in this study: skills, errors, protocols, and test
scores.
(a) the classification coding of the self-witnessing reports yield
scores for
each of the 18 zones of the taxonomy of skills and errors (three
domains and
three levels) (Typology of Skills and Errors);
(b) the coding on the search protocols (well-formedness of diagrams)
extracted
from the transcripts of the oral tapes (Typology of Protocols);
(c) the monthly test scores of library proficiency (with a number of
sub-scores). Given the richness of this longitudinal type of study and
the
database it will yield, there is an indefinitely large variety of
statistical
analyses possible. Only a few of these will be indicated here.
We will adapt the classification scheme already referred to for the
coding of
skills and errors. 25 We will use the method of diagramming for the
coding of
search protocol transcripts, and possibly others to be developed. We
will use
the Kramer-Nahl Library Proficiency Test for the written tests. We will
use the
exercises previously developed for the field-type library tests. 26
Since our
sample is small and not necessarily representative there are limits to
the use
of inferential statistics for cross-group comparisons. However, the
data are
suitable for trend analyses within individual protocols over time and
for
cluster analyses to determine the degree of interdependability of
search skills
and errors, protocol types, and test scores.
BENEFITS
OF THE
STUDY
At the end of the project there will be available a unique database on
the
complex educational activity of learning the library over a period of
several
semesters, yielding a source of empirical information on the following
concerns:
1. Identifying
the
components, or minimal units, of search behavior from the perspective
of the
user, an issue relevant to cognitive simulation and the understanding
of
everyday decision making;
2. Identifying the affective, cognitive, and psychomotor skills and
errors that
constitute knowledge and use of a library, issues of vital interest to
library
instruction and information literacy;
3. Identifying patterns of actual search protocols and developing a
method for
ranking their usefulness as model protocols. This type of data is of
help in
cognitive theory building as well as in library instruction and
administration;
4. Discovering individual differences in information seeking behavior,
in
particular, obtaining evidence of variability of errors committed, of
differences in the rate of acquiring skills, and of alternative
patterns of
solutions to standard problems.
5. Revealing the relative learnability of various common library tools,
and the
feelings, thoughts, and actions associated with their cumulative use
over time.
6. Obtaining evidence of the influence particular information tools
have on the
research practices of the patron (e.g., automated vs. card catalogs,
popular
vs. academic indexes).
7. Examining in detail many routine search decisions, as for example,
when a
title is judged relevant, and whether this acceptance is later
fulfilled when
the article is retrieved and read.
8. Obtaining an integrated view on information-seeking and library
research as
a goal-directed behavior controlled or organized by a hierarchy of
goals and
sub-goals.
9. Contributing to the issue of whether there is a basic ability or
special
aptitude for library proficiency, by yielding information on the
interdependence of skills and errors over time.
10. Contributing to the study of basic cognitive processes in search
behavior
and intellectual problem solving, through microdescriptions of
sequences of
on-going thoughts and decisions.
This study raises some questions which only further research can
clarify. In
particular, to what extent these data are generalizable to (a) the
overall
population at large (students, non-students, professionals, etc.), (b)
longer
time spans (years and decades), (c) different types of information
seeking
behaviors (public and special libraries, information centers, business,
etc.),
and (d) various cross-cultural groups, which has implications for
discovering
cognitive universals of information-seeking behavior and the worldwide
integration of library systems. We expect that the results of this
study, and
their appropriate dissemination in professional and scientific
journals, will
stimulate other researchers in library science and psychology to
explore the
value of the self-witnessing technique.
.
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26 Nahl-Jakobovits, Diane and Jakobovits, Leon A. Teacher's
Companion. op.cit.
Leave
a message for Leon James?
ntent analysis
for their
evaluation. 20