Framing of different types of information needs within simulated work task situations: An empirical study in the school context

TY - JOUR

T1 - Framing of different types of information needs within simulated work task situations

T2 - An empirical study in the school context

AU - Borlund, Pia

PY - 2015/6

Y1 - 2015/6

N2 - This paper reports a meta-evaluation of how to frame different types of information needs within simulated work task situations. This is done via an empirical study of teenagers and their teachers' Internet information searching. Two sets of simulated work task situations were carefully designed to reflect verificative, conscious topical and muddled topical information needs of each group of test participants. The study shows that it is challenging to formulate verificative simulated work task situations and to incorporate curiosity in the muddled topical simulated work task situations. The results also show that the search behaviour of the two groups differs across the information needs, as expected, but also between the two groups, owing to the search strategy and attitude of the teenagers. This is seen by how fast they were at searching and assessing relevance, often using Google's 'picture search function', and saving the reading in detail for later.

AB - This paper reports a meta-evaluation of how to frame different types of information needs within simulated work task situations. This is done via an empirical study of teenagers and their teachers' Internet information searching. Two sets of simulated work task situations were carefully designed to reflect verificative, conscious topical and muddled topical information needs of each group of test participants. The study shows that it is challenging to formulate verificative simulated work task situations and to incorporate curiosity in the muddled topical simulated work task situations. The results also show that the search behaviour of the two groups differs across the information needs, as expected, but also between the two groups, owing to the search strategy and attitude of the teenagers. This is seen by how fast they were at searching and assessing relevance, often using Google's 'picture search function', and saving the reading in detail for later.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - IIR evaluation study

KW - information needs

KW - meta-evaluation; simulated work task situations

U2 - 10.1177/0165551515625028

DO - 10.1177/0165551515625028

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0165-5515

VL - 42

SP - 313

EP - 323

JO - Journal of Information Science

JF - Journal of Information Science

IS - 3

ER -