Graduate Student Search Strategies within Academic Digital Libraries

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dc.contributor.authorHoeber, Orland
dc.contributor.authorStorie, Dale
dc.date.accessioned2023-07-10T18:17:15Z
dc.date.available2023-07-10T18:17:15Z
dc.date.issued2023
dc.description.abstractPurpose: When searching within an academic digital library, a variety of information seeking strategies may be employed. The purpose of this study is to determine whether graduate students choose appropriate information seeking strategies for the complexity of a given search scenario, and to explore among other factors that could influence their decisions. Methods: We used a survey method in which participants (n=176) were asked to recall their most recent instance of an academic digital library search session that matched two given scenarios (randomly chosen from four alternatives), and for each scenario identify whether they employed search strategies associated with four different information seeking models. Results: Among the search strategies, only lookup search was used in a manner that was consistent with the complexity of the search scenario. Other factors that influenced the choice of strategy were the discipline of study and the type of academic search training received. Patterns of search tool use with respect to the complexity of the search scenarios were also identified. Conclusion: These findings highlight that not only is it important to train graduate students on how to conduct academic digital library searches, more work is needed to train them on matching the information seeking strategies to the complexity of their search tasks and developing interfaces that guide their search process.}en_US
dc.description.authorstatusFacultyen_US
dc.description.peerreviewyesen_US
dc.description.sponsorshipThis work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), through the Discovery Grant held by the first author (RGPIN-2017-06446).en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10294/16011
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherInternational Journal on Digital Librariesen_US
dc.subjectsearch strategies, search tools, survey research, academic searchen_US
dc.titleGraduate Student Search Strategies within Academic Digital Librariesen_US
dc.typeJournal Articleen_US
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