CHAPTER 1

THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND ITS SCOPE

Introduction
Information-seeking behaviour is a broad term encompassing the ways
individuals articulate their information needs, seek, evaluate, select, and use
information. In other words, information-seeking behaviour is a purposive seeking
of information as a consequence of a need to satisfy some goal. In the course of
seeking, the individual may interact with people, manual information system, or
with computer-based information systems (Wilson, 2000).
The faculty of Liceo de Cagayan University- College of Arts and Sciences
teaches and facilitates learning through specialized application of knowledge,
skills and attributes designed to provide unique service to meet the educational
needs of the students. These college professors vary in their own ways of
seeking informations. Technologies nowadays are used in order to seek certain
information which could affect the academic library environment.
Academic librarians continuously strive to meet the information needs of
their users and it requires an understanding of their users information needs and
information-seeking behaviors. Knowing the information that is desired by faculty,
for what purposes, and how it is discovered, can guide an array of academic
library services, policies, programmatic offerings, and collection development
activities (Serrano and Robbins, 2013).
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As Engel,et.al. Puts it, understanding the nature of the user community
and the information-seeking habits and practices of the users are common
themes in the library. With improved understanding of the information-seeking
behaviorlibrarians can better develop information services and resources,
implement policies that will help faculty access quality information, and
improve collection development practices.
Using the definition provided by Case (2012), information seeking is taken
to be behavior that occurs when an individual senses a problematic situation or
information gap, in which his or her internal knowledge and beliefs, and model of
environment, fail to suggest a path toward satisfaction of his or her goals.
According to Pendleton & Chatman 1998, information seeking behavior
describes as multi-faceted relationship of information in the lives of human
beings, a relationship that can include both active searching through formal
information channels and a variety of other attitudes and actions, including
skepticism and ambivalence.
The library is the most widely used source of information available to
literate societies. Librarians must be aware of the kind of information resources
that can be delivered to the users, most especially to the faculty members; they
can also develop information services and resources, implement policies that
help the faculty in order to access quality information. It is extremely important to
be able to access and use information for them to give the efficient and effective
learning to their students.
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Given this matter, the researchers, as Library Information Science
students, who are inherently interested in the study of library by means of
improving and preserving it, decided to pursue this study in an attempt to
determine the information-seeking behavior of the College of Arts and Sciences
faculty and through determining their preferred sources of information in order to
deliver an efficient, effective teaching and learning to the students.
Thus, the study attempted to find out the following; to what extent do the
respondents employ the following information seeking behavior: starting,
chaining, browsing, differentiating, monitoring, extracting, verifying, and ending?
Conversely, what are the preferred sources of the respondents in seeking
information? On the other hand, is there a significant difference in the preferred
sources of the respondents in seeking information when grouped according to
profile? Finally, and in sum, is there a relationship between the information
seeking behavior of the respondents and their preferred sources?
The knowledge that this study would generate would benefit not only to
the faculty but also to the librarians in meeting the information needs of the
former to deliver quality information to the students.
Conceptual Framework
The study will be anchored on the Information Seeking Model of Ellis
(1989) and of Ellis, Cox, and Hall (1993). They asserted that the detailed
interrelation or interaction of the features in any individual information seeking
pattern will depend on the unique circumstances of the information seeking
activities of the person concerned at that particular point in time. These eight
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generic features or research activities are the following: starting the means
employed by the user to begin seeking information, for example, asking some
knowledgeable colleague; chaining following footnotes and citations in known
material or forward chaining from known items through citation indexes;
browsing semi-directed or semi-structured searching; differentiating using
known differences in information sources as a way of filtering the amount of
information obtained; monitoring keeping up-to-date or current awareness
searching; extracting selectively identifying relevant material in an information
source; verifying checking the accuracy of information; ending which may be
defined as tying up loose ends through a final search.
Another concept used in this study is the Information Seeking Model of
Ellis (1987, 1989). According to Ellis, starting comprising those activities
characteristic of the initial search for information such as identifying references
that could serve as starting points of the research cycle. These references often
include sources that have been used before as well as sources that are expected
to provide relevant information. Asking colleagues or consulting literature
reviews, online catalogs, and indexes and abstracts often initiate starting
activities. Chaining is following chains of citations or other forms of referential
connection between materials or sources identied during starting activities.
Chaining can be backward or forward. Backward chaining takes place when
references from an initial source are followed. In the reverse direction, forward
chaining identies, and follows up on, other sources that refer to an original
source. Browsing is casually looking for information in areas of potential interest.
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It not only includes scanning of published journals and tables of contents but also
of references and abstracts of printouts from retrospective literature searches.
Differentiating is using known differences between sources as a way of ltering
the amount of information obtained. Monitoring is kept in abreast of
developments in an area by regularly following particular sources. Extracting
activities are associated with going through a particular source or sources and
selectively identifying relevant material from those sources.
(PREFERRED SOURCES THEORIES)

In this study, the researchers sought to find out the information seeking behavior
and preferred sources among all regular faculty of the College of Arts and
Science. Figure 1 shows the interplay of the exploration in this study,











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Schematic Presentation

INDEPENDENT VARIABLES DEPENDENT VARIABLES













Figure 1. Schema Showing the Relationship between the Independent and
Dependent Variables





Information Seeking
Behaviour of the Faculty of
the College of Arts and
Science

1. Starting
2. Chaining
3. Browsing
4. Differentiating
5. Monitoring
6. Extracting
7. Verifying
8. Ending

Preferred sources in
information seeking of the
Faculty of the College of Arts
and Science

1. Books
2. E books
3. Audiovisual Materials
4. Professional/ Academic
Websites
5. Online Journals
6. Periodicals

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Statement of the Problem
This study aims to determine the information-seeking behavior of the
faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences in relation with their preferred
resources in information seeking during the first semester of the S.Y. 2014 2015.
Specifically, it seeks to answer the following questions:
1. To what extent do the respondents employ the following information seeking
behavior?
2.1. starting
2.2. chaining
2.3. browsing
2.4. differentiating
2.5. monitoring
2.6. extracting
2.7. verifying
2.8. ending

2. What are the preferred sources of the respondents in seeking information in
terms of the following?
3.1. Books
3.2. E books
3.3. Audiovisual Materials
3.4. Professional/Academic websites
5.5. Electronic Journals
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3.6. Periodicals
3. Is there a relationship between the information seeking behavior of the
respondents and their preferred sources?
4. Is there a significant difference in the preferred sources of the respondents in
seeking information when grouped according to profile?

Hypothesis
1. There is no significant relationship between the information seeking
behavior of the respondents and their preferred sources.
2. There is no significant difference in the preferred sources of the
respondents when grouped according to profile.

Significance of the study
The findings of the study would benefit the following stakeholders:
Dean. The findings will provide the Dean of the College of Arts and
Sciences with information on the preferred materials used by the faculty when
seeking information for research purposes and for their teaching responsibilities.
Librarian. The findings will guide them in selecting and acquiring
adequate resources relevant to the research works of the patrons.
Teachers. The findings will guide them in achieving their mission on
providing effective information for their students.
Students. Awareness of the preferred resources of the faculty will
encourage them to study more on their lessons.
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Future Researchers. The study can help them as basis for related
research in the future.
Scope and Delimitation of the Study
The study will focus on the preferred sources and information seeking
behavior of the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences when seeking
information. The study was further delimited to the preferred sources for research
activities that included writing of dissertation, for student lectures and prepare for
conference presentation.
Definition of Terms
To have a better understanding of this study, the following terms are
operationally defined.
Book. It is a printed material usually bound together within covers and it
consist a certain topic of information.
E book. It is a book length publication in digital form, consisting of text,
images, or both, readable on computers or other electronic devices. This is also
refers to an electronic version of a printed book.
Audiovisual Materials. It is a non-print material such as audio cassettes,
video cassettes, compact discs, DVDs, and filmstrips. And this materials or
equipments are used to create and present such works.
Internet sources. This refers to an online sources and it is basically a
web page. It can also get a certain articles from online databases available
through many websites
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Electronic Journals. It refers to an electronic serial, scholarly journals or
intellectual magazines that can be accessed via electronic transmission. It is
usually published on the Web and it is specialized form of electronic document. It
has the purpose of providing materials for academic research and study.
Periodical. This refers to a print material such as magazines, journals,
etc. that is issued regularly recurring intervals.