Article Review #1

Meskerem Goshime

September 20, 2011

Connaway, L. S., Dickey, Timothy J., & Radford, Marie L. (2011). "If it is too inconvenient I'm not going after it:" Convenience as a critical factor in information-seeking behaviors. Library & Information Science Research, 33, 179-190.

Introduction

This article reports findings of a research project made in two phases.  The research explored “the emergence of the concept of convenience as a critical factor in information-seeking choices among a variety of different types of people, across a period of several years, and in a variety of contexts (Connaway et. al, 2011).”

This article may be relevant to my research proposal as I am currently considering the topic "information search behavior of high school and college students" with a focus on the process of searching and finding information resources for the purpose of school projects.  I am considering using firsthand accounts of students in the form of a diary of their information search process, while working on a school project, describing each of the sources they tried, their success or failure in finding the information they need, and their feelings and opinions along the process.

Research Question

The research questions of this study were “Why do people choose one information source instead of another?” and “What factors contribute to their selection of information sources?”

Population, Data Sources, Data Collection and Data Analysis

This is a non-experimental research which employed a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods to collect the data (data triangulation).  The population for the first part of this study was faculty, undergraduate and graduate students of 44 colleges and universities in Mid-Western U.S.  Methodologies used were investigation (exploratory study), online survey and telephone follow up interview of randomly selected subjects, exploratory focus group interviews and follow up semi-structured interviews with a subset of focus group participants in a natural setting.  The second part of the research, seeking synchronicity project, was conducted after a three year period (longitudinal study).  This part used online survey and telephone interviews of reference service users and non-users.  The population for this part of the study is not clear to me from the report.  However, judging from the findings presented, I would guess that it involved public library virtual reference service users.  (Age groups from age 12 and rural, urban and sub-urban categories are mentioned in the findings.)

            The results from all the methodologies used strongly showed that convenience is a factor for making choices in both academic and everyday-life information seeking.  It also concluded that this is especially prevalent among younger people, but also holds across all different categories used in the research.

Literature Review

Literature review of this article cited different previous researches in relation to users’ preference of information sources that are convenient and easy to use, particularly the internet.  As a theoretical base, the research cites the “rational choice theory” (developed in economics), which states that “even the most complex social behavior may be viewed in terms of discrete and elementary individual actions.  …each individual choice among actions is rationally directed towards their own values.”  (Connaway et. al, 2011)  Gratification theory, which suggests that at least for poorer subjects, information must be easily and timely accessible, is also cited.  Gratification theory states that poor people seek immediate gratification. 

The literature review did not explicitly point out a gap in the literature that it attempts to fill.  Its findings seem similar to previous researches.  However, the fact that this study was conducted on a large population, over a period of time, and using various methodologies makes it significant in understanding the topic.

Caveats

Even though users were asked about their information use behavior in their academic and every-day life information needs, the report did not explain whether even sampling is made from people in academy and people not in academy, but the results seem to be generalized to all.

Even though a longitudinal research was made comparing results in a period of three years, I was not able to determine from the report if the same population is used for the second online survey.  It is explicitly mentioned that the population used in the first online survey is faculty, and undergraduate and graduate students.  However, the second online survey seems to be on public library reference service users, as I mentioned above.  If the population used is indeed different, it may not be valid to compare the two results.  However, on the other hand, the consistency of the results still suggests that the results are probably valid in varied population groups.