Modelling the Information Seeking and Use Process in the Workplace: Employing Sense-Making Approach

Introduction

This paper reported a qualitative study into the information seeking
and use process of eight auditors and eight engineers in their workplace
contexts. (This doctorate research project has also studied eight architects,
however, the analysis and findings have not been completed and are not
reported here). The aim of this research project is to empirically develop
a model, referred to as information seeking and use process model (or ISU
process model), that can meaningfully reflect real-life practice. This
model would have implications for information professionals involved in
the management of information services, systems design and information
literacy education.

Methodology

Participants

The two groups of participants were eight auditors and eight engineers
working in Singapore. They have between one to five years of working experience
in their profession. Auditors and engineers were chosen firstly, because
they have long been recognised as "knowledge workers" who have to access,
use, evaluate and generate large amount of information at work. More importantly,
auditors' and engineers' respective professional associations have highlighted
that their professions require people who are competent in seeking, using
and managing information. Therefore, the author decided to study them to
get a rich insight into how people seek and use information in the workplace.

Using quotes taken from the interview transcripts, the major role of
the auditors being interviewed is "to ensure that internal controls in
the audited companies are in place and adequate, and that established company
policies are being followed, and no frauds are taking place." The major
role of the quality engineers being interviewed is "to ensure that the
products being manufactured are up to specified standards and achieve customer
satisfaction."

Scope of the study

This study focused on how auditors and engineers seek and use information
in answering questions they have in mind, in the course of completing their
"audit assignments" and "engineering projects". This is based on the assumption
that the questions people have can reflect their information needs at that
particular moment in time.

Data Collection

The verbal protocol was the method used to collect data. Data was collected
using in-depth unstructured interviewing. All interviews were conducted
individually with each participant. Each interview lasted for approximately
ninety minutes. The procedure for conducting interviews consisted of a
warm-up session, in-depth interviews and a brief post-interview sharing
session. First, the participants were informed of the aim of the study.
Then, the participants were invited to sign a consent form for participation
before the actual interview took place.

Each interview started with asking the participants to think of one
or more specific projects that they have completed. The participants were
then encouraged to share with the researcher the various stages that they
have gone through in order to complete their work. This interviewing method
is informed by Dervinís (1983) Micro-Moment Time-Line Interview, which
she has put forward in applying the Sense-Making approach to study information
needs and uses. The exact wording of the questions depended on the flow
of each interview, the main questions were, with reference to a particular
stage that the participants have shared:

What questions flash through your minds in this particular stage of the
project?

What strategies do you use to get answers to your questions? Why do you
choose to use this strategy?

What problems do you have in getting answers?

How does each answer help (or fail to help) you to carry on with your tasks?

What is your feeling at this stage?

The 90-minute interviews were conducted in a highly unstructured format.
When sharing their experience, participants referred to different projects
and to different stages in completing projects in no specific order. The
researcher, thus, had to note down the main stages of the different projects
being mentioned, and ask follow up questions.

Data Analysis

The interview dialogues were transcribed and analysed, both manually
and with the assistance of a qualitative data analysis software titled
NUD-IST. The categories (referred to as information seeking and using situations
or "ISU situations") derived in the present study are developmental in
nature. The categories emerged from the data, were modified, refined or
abandoned as the analysis proceeded.

First, the researcher read each transcript and singled out all "ISU
situations" that participants perceived they are involved in. These "ISU
situations" were either directly mentioned by the participants (e.g. "I
am trying to confirm") or inferred by the researcher from the answers shared
by the participants. Then, each identified "ISU situation" was carefully
compared against each other, to ensure that each situation carried a unique
meaning. The categories continued to be refined until all the identified
"ISU situations" were stabilised. They were then used as a framework to
identify information behaviour associated with each situation. During the
data collection and analysis process, the researcher avoided assigning
categories based on prior literature, so as to ensure the trustworthiness
of the outcome.

Preliminary Findings

The information seeking and using (ISU) process model developed in this
study is made up of seven critically different situations that participants
experienced in their workplaces. The seven ISU situations included (See
Diagram 1):

(1) Task Initiating Situation: this is the situation when
participants perceive they have a new task to work on;

(2) Focus Forming Situation: this is the situation when
participants perceive they have to gain a better understanding of how they
should go about carrying out their tasks or solving problems;

(3) Ideas Assuming Situation: this is the situation when
participants are forming ideas about how to carry out their tasks or to
solve problems;

(4) Ideas Confirming Situation: this is the situation
when participants are trying to confirm the ideas they have assumed;

(5) Ideas Rejecting Situation: this is the situation when
participants encounter conflicting information or they cannot get the answers
they need to confirm their assumed ideas;

(6) Ideas Finalising Situation: this is the situation
when participants are trying to seek formal consensus to finalise their
ideas;

(7) Passing on Ideas Situation: this is the situation
when participants are presenting ideas to targeted audience.

Diagram 1: Seven Information Seeking and Using (ISU) Situations in the
Workplace

Task Initiating Situation

Focus Formulating Situation

Ideas Assuming Situation

Ideas Confirming Situation

Ideas Rejecting Situation

Ideas Finalising Situation

Passing on Ideas Situation

The seven situations form an important framework for identifying information
behaviour (which include physical, cognitive and affective aspects of information
seeking and use activities) distinctively associated to each ISU situation.
A snapshot of the analysis is presented in Diagram 2.

Diagram 2: Examples of the Relationship Between Situations and Information Behaviours

Situations

Choice of info sources

Info Relevance Judgement

Info organising strategies

Info presentation strategies

Feelings

Definition of info

Task initiating

* specific info sources given
by boss

* accept easily

* mental

* to gather info

* doubtful

* fear

* data, events, physical items,
figures, words

Focus Formulating

* easily accessible, general source

* low persistency in using one source

* accept easily

* mental

* to gather info

* ok

* raw data which can be applied

Ideas assuming

* general and specific sources

* more careful evaluation

* jot notes

* make photocopies

* to gather info

* worried

* raw data which can be applied

Ideas Confirming

* specific source

* authority source

* Compare against
expectation,

common sense,

standards,

information gathered from other source

* jot notes

* make photocopies

* to gather info

* worried

* evidence, testing results, facts,
reasons

Ideas Rejecting

* specific source

* double check sources being used

* authority source

* jot notes

* make photocopies

* to gather info

* pressured

* frustrated

* evidence, testing results, facts,
reasons

Ideas Finalising

* specific source

* authority source

* double confirm ideas

* start deleting irrelevant info

* to get feedback & consensus

* relax

* feedback, consensus

Passing on Ideas

* to pass on new knowledge &
findings

* relax

* personal knowledge, value-added
filtered information

The second major finding of this study is the correlation between each
situation and the following aspects:

Use and choice of information sources: participants use easily
accessible, general information sources (e.g. magazines and Internet) in
Focus Formulating Situation. Their persistence in using any information
source is low. However, in Ideas Confirming and Ideas Rejecting Situation,
people turned to use specific and authoritative information sources.

Information relevance judgement criteria: participants "pick
up" or "accept what people tell them" in Task Initiating and Focus Formulating
Situations. And in Ideas Confirming and Ideas Rejecting Situations, they
use more stringent criteria such as comparing data they gathered against:
(1) expectation they have formed; (2) common sense; (3) standards and specifications;
and (4) information gathered from various other sources. In Ideas finalising
situation, the criteria are relaxed when they only need senior and authoritative
parties to double-confirm ideas.

Information organisation strategies: in most situations,
participants would like to organise information mentally in their heads.
However, in Ideas Confirming and Ideas Rejecting Situation, physical ways
to organise information (e.g. jot notes, make photocopies) are pointed
out by participants as important.

Information presentation strategies: in most situations,
the participants presented background information to the information sources
(e.g. boss and colleagues-in-charge), aiming at getting relevant answers.
In Ideas Finalising Situation, they presented information with an aim to
get feedback and consensus. In Passing on Ideas Situation, they aim at
passing on new knowledge and findings they have to the targeted audience.

Feelings: participants feel doubtful and fearful in the Task
Initiating Situation. They get more worried in Ideas Assuming Situation
and Ideas Confirming Situation, as they are unsure whether ideas can be
confirmed. Their feeling is mostly negative in the Ideas Rejecting Situation,
and described as pressurised and frustrated. In Ideas Finalising and Passing
on Ideas Situations, they start to feel relaxed.

Definition of information: in Task Initiating and Focus Formulating
Situations, "information" is referred to as data, events, physical items,
figures, words etc. In Assuming Ideas Situation, information becomes "those
raw data which can be applied". In Ideas Confirming and Rejecting Situations,
"information" is evidence, testing results, facts and reasons. In Ideas
Finalising Situation, "information" is feedback and consensus from boss
and clients. And in Passing on Ideas Situation, "information" is personal
knowledge, assets, value-added and filtered management information.

The third major finding of this study suggested that ISU process in the
workplace does not follow any specified sequential order. Instead, people
moved between these seven ISU situations in multi-directional paths. This
coincides with earlier findings conducted in the school environment by
Kuhlthau (1993) and the theoretical information seeking model in the workplace
derived from literature review (Leckie et al., 1996).

Implications and Significance of Findings

The major difference of the ISU process model developed in this research,
when compared to previous information seeking research findings and models,
is that this research has highlighted the always-moving nature of the process
of human information seeking and use. Instead of presenting ISU process
as a static model, consisting of a number of different stages, and arguing
that there are many exceptions and that people may not experience the stages
in a linear manner, the author has taken an alternative perspective.

The ISU process model developed here, being informed by Sense-Making
methodology, is made up of seven ISU situations, and it is a non-linear
model (i.e. people move in-between these situations in no specified order).
This non-linear model suggests that although it is impossible to pre-determine
what ISU situations (and in what order these situations) will be experienced,
it is possible to associate distinctive sets of information seeking and
use behaviours with different ISU situations. In this sense, the process
of human information seeking and use is systematic, and thus human information
seeking and use behaviours are predictable.

By directly addressing the dynamic nature of human information seeking
and use, the model is able to suggest answers to challenges such as: Why
don't people go through the ISU process step-by-step as prescribed in various
models? Why is there no statistically significant correlation between participants'
individual differences (e.g. age, years of experience) and ISU process?
(Baldwin & Rice, 1997) Why does participant X demonstrate inconsistent
behaviour in seeking and using information at different times? The answer,
as presented in the model, is that the different situations people perceived
they are involved in, could be a powerful predictor of people's physical,
cognitive and affective information behaviour at that moment in time and
space .

Taking this alternative perspective, this model does not rule out the
validity of traditional information seeking models, presented mostly linearly.
Rather, the traditional models are argued to be "limited", in that they
only present one (probably an exceptionally smooth and systematic process)
among the many possible processes that people can experience when seeking
and using information. This model, on the other hand, is more comprehensive,
in that it can also explain information behaviours that are traditionally
considered as an "exception", "looping back" or "iterative" (Kuhlthau,
1993; Cole, 1997; Eisenberg & Berkowitz, 1990; Cheuk, 1998).

Last, but not the least, this model can improve our understanding of
the long lists of information needs and information seeking behaviour,
which have been derived from various contexts in the past few decades.
Rather than being satisfied with existing research findings which suggest
that people belonging to certain unit, in general, use a standard set of
information seeking behaviours. This model has attempted to transcend current
understanding by exploring what information seeking behaviours are being
used in different situations, thus, making it possible the better to predict
human information seeking and use behaviour.

Conclusions

Employing the Sense-Making Approach, has a number of implications for
the study of information seeking and use. Sense-Making asks researchers
to look at the micro-time moment when people have information needs. It
also asks researchers to understand how do people define the situations
(at the micro-time moment when they have information needs). It proposes
that human information seeking and using behaviour is responsive to the
situations. Many studies, including the preliminary findings of this study,
have confirmed this.

Employing Sense-Making Approach, on the other hand, ask researchers
not to only focus on identifying "what" information behaviour, information
sources, information strategies people use. It asks researchers to study
"why" and what lead people to behave in particular ways. With this understanding,
it is possible to design information services and systems which can fully
support peopleís movement through the dynamic process of information seeking
and use.

In terms of practical implications, the ISU process model suggests that,
for example, educators may need to re-think whether students should be
taught to follow a "right" path to seek and use information. Systems designers
may need to design information systems which can communicate with users,
especially about which situations information users' perceived they are
in when they log into the system, and thus suggest appropriate information
sources, search functions and features pertaining to that situation.

This exploratory study was, nevertheless, constrained by the limited
number of workplaces and participants being studied. The ISU process model
in the workplace is tentative. Follow-up studies could contribute to a
refined model by studying employees involved in different workplaces. The
author has chosen to proceed from here, with the study of architects as
the third professional group.

Cheuk, B. (1998). An experienced based information literacy model in the workplace: case studies from Singapore. In Information Literacy: the Professional Issue. Proceedings of the 3rd Australian National Information Literacy Conference, Canberra, 1997, ed. Di Booker, University of South Australia Library, Adelaide, 1998, pp. 74-82.