Verification of information behavioral grammar: Role of searchers

Abstract

AbstractThis paper reports on a verification study of the information behavioral grammar (IBG) model initially developed in 2000. We used a modified critical incident technique to identify how social science faculty members' information‐seeking processes are engaged differently for their differing role tasks. A semistructured interview was conducted on the recently experienced information‐seeking processes of researchers, teachers, and personal/family decision makers. As a result, 31 information‐seeking processes (nine on research, six on teaching, and 16 for personal/family decision making) were identified. Contents of recorded interviews were analyzed for associations among behavioral, cognitive, affective, social and environmental aspects using the constant‐comparative method. The characteristics of information‐seeking processes for each role were identified and compared with the IBG model. Results indicate that the IBG model fits the patterns identified for social scientists' information‐seeking processes for research and teaching. However, we could not obtain reliable data to verify the applicability of the IBG model to their information‐seeking processes for personal/family decision making, mainly because these processes were deeply embedded in their everyday life activities and, in most cases, were taken for granted, which made difficult recall of the exact sequence of actions with associated cognitive, affective, social and environmental situations.