Information seeking behaviour ofArab social science and humanities postgraduates: Adescriptive study

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a study of information-seeking behavior among a group of Arab postgraduate students in social science and humanities disciplines. The paper also explores information-seeking styles and examines how information seeking is affected by external factors. The study employed a qualitative approach to explore informationseeking behavior in the sample and the sources of information used to obtain scholarly information. A sample of 33 participants was interviewed to elucidate the information-seeking behavior of the Arabic language speakers. The analysis of the interviews revealed that the participants use different methods to find information on the internet. These methods vary from using search engines to using sites that provide pirated scholarly papers. The data showed that most of the sample students use search engines and databases provided by their universities, but they should be trained in research ethics to avoid unacceptable research practices. The results also indicate that searching in other languages represents a challenge for Arab postgraduates in the social sciences and humanities. This study was conducted with social science and humanities postgraduates as part of a series of studies aiming to explore Arab language speakers' scholarly practices. The information-seeking behavior of science disciplines may differ, as the teaching language is mainly in English. This study contributes to the field by expanding our understanding of how non-English language speakers seek scholarly information and what sources are used to obtain the scholarly papers.