INFORMATION SEEKING HEURISTICS OF UNDERGRADUATE LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES DILIMAN

Abstract

A “heuristic” is the rule of thumb processes, procedures, mental short-cuts and strategies people employ believing it is the best way to solve a problem. This article maps Marchionini's model of information seeking to Sternberg's problem-solving model in order to present three data collection methods which were tested in a psychological research methods course for the study of information seeking among undergraduate library users.

The steps in Marchionini's model of information seeking parallel that in Sternberg's problem-solving cycle model and brings it down to a more specific level. The following steps in Sternberg's problem-solving cycle correspond to Marchionini's model: problem identification with recognition and acceptance of an information problem; problem definition and representation with definition and understanding of the (information) problem; strategy formulation with selecting source/choosing the search system and formulating the query; strategy formulation and organization of information with formulating the query and executing the search; organization of information with examining results and extracting information; resource allocation with selecting the source/choosing the search system and extracting information; monitoring and evaluation with examining results, extracting information and reflecting/iterating/stopping the information seeking process.

The data collection methods tested were observation, interview and questionnaire. Testing was done at the School of Library and Information Studies, University of the Philippines Diliman. The observation was conducted in the SLIS library while the interview and questionnaire were tested with SLIS undergraduate students as participants. Two undergraduate students enrolled in a research methodology course were randomly chosen for the interview while a purposive sample of 46 students belonging to various year levels pre-tested the questionnaire. Results show that all methods can record actions related to information seeking but it is the interview that captures the most wholistic picture of an individual's information seeking.