Children's information seeking in coping with daily-life problems: An investigation of fifth- and sixth-grade students

Abstract

Researchers have increasingly paid attention to the personal and emotional growth of youth. However, little research has examined how exactly young people use or seek information for their personal development and growth. The primary goal of this study, therefore, was to explore the students' use of “information seeking” to cope with their day-to-day personal stressors and problems. The sample consisted of 641 children in fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms from an urban public elementary school in Taiwan. Data were collected through semistructured, open-ended surveys. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to analyze the data. This study found that in coping with daily-life problems, nearly two-thirds of the participating children would seek information; that sixth graders were more likely to do so; and that gender did not make information seeking more (or less) probable in this coping context. Findings also revealed some major reasons for children's information seeking in this coping context, for example, to solve problems, to escape, and to find a transition. Finally, five major different information seeking behaviors related to coping emerged from the findings: information seeking for problem solving, information seeking to escape, information seeking for a transition, information seeking to change mood, and information avoidance, which can be used as a platform to develop an explanatory and possibly predictive framework for future studies.