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theses

The government and society are increasingly questioning the value of libraries and higher education institutions (HEIs). While there is no one agreed upon standard of value or a way to measure it, both Library and Information Science (LIS) and Education research have suggested that library and educational resources and services should demonstrate their impact on individual student outcomes. Engagement studies in both areas suggest that by increasing student engagement, institutions can positively and significantly affect student outcomes. Although little work has been done in the area of information engagement (IE), engagement is a useful framework that can be defined and measured on behavioral, emotional, motivational, and cognitive dimensions. In order to explore, define, and measure IE, this dissertation study examines how social science doctoral students find, filter, access, and organize information. Doctoral students are an understudied population, despite their need for scholarly and often difficult to obtain information. Because little is known about doctoral student IE, samples from this population were drawn in a three part mixed methods study, which consisted of focus group interviews, individual interviews, and an online survey. Overall, 158 doctoral students from the United States participated in all three phases of this research. Based on the analysis of qualitative data from the focus group and individual interviews, three factors emerged and were used to measure IE related behaviors in the online survey. The first factor was personality, and according to the quantitative analysis, participants who scored higher on an index based on this factor were more open to asking for help/clarification; less unhappy if they retrieved a large quantity of information, even if it was unexpected; and would be more likely to consider changing their research based on what they found. The second factor was confidence, and participants who scored higher on an index based on this factor believed that they had better searching abilities and felt less challenged by commonly encountered obstacles to finding information. The third factor was interest in library instruction, and participants who scored higher on an index based on this factor were more likely to prefer an instruction session over face-to-face help when they needed it, and think that library instruction would be beneficial to others in their program. The index scores for these factors had statistically significant relationships to each other and information related behaviors, which included how much participants would pay for a book that they needed for their research and where they would start a search on an unfamiliar topic. The strength of these relationships increased for students in the dissertation writing stage of their program and for students who lived more than an hour away from campus. In addition to being the first study to identify these relationships, this dissertation’s major contributions include identifying the critical factors that affect IE, doctoral student outcomes that information and libraries can support, and suggestions for educating this population on information related topics.

ETD_8014

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Stephanie Mikitish

doi:10.7282/T3VQ35JG

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.