Contributions to conceptual growth: The elaboration of Ellis's model for information‐seeking behavior

Abstract

Using Ellis's seminal model of information seeking as an example, this study demonstrates how the elaborations made to the original framework since the late 1980s have contributed to conceptual growth in information‐seeking studies. To this end, nine key studies elaborating Ellis's model were scrutinized by conceptual analysis. The findings indicate that the elaborations are based on two main approaches: adding novel, context‐specific components in the model and redefining and restructuring the components. The elaborations have contributed to conceptual growth in three major ways. First, integrating formerly separate parts of knowledge; second, generalizing and explaining lower abstraction‐level knowledge through higher‐level constructs; and third, expanding knowledge by identifying new characteristics of the object of study, that is, information‐seeking behavior. Further elaboration of Ellis's model toward a theory would require more focused attempts to test hypotheses in work‐related environments in particular.