The behavior and patterns of recovery and processing of digital information by users is a recurring theme in the literature. The study of these behaviors are carried out through observation techniques and analysis of processes, actions and decisions undertaken by users in different situations. This paper presents the data resulting from the study of patterns of recovery and management of reference information of three consecutive courses of a specialized subject. The findings obtained showed a clear difference between patterns of information retrieval and obtained prior to the end of the training process, but there has been a significant change in the ultimate goal of users or appreciable changes in their prospects for application in other environments.

Increasingly, workplace information seeking takes place in digital information environments and is reliant upon search systems. Existing systems are designed to retrieve information that is relevant to the query, but are not capable of identifying information that is well-suited to the context and situation of a search. This is a problem for professionals who often are searching for a small amount of useful information that can be applied to a problem or task, and have limited time to browse through large sets of results. This inability of search systems to discriminate between relevant and useful documents is one of the core problems in information retrieval. In this dissertation, I address this problem by studying the role that contextual factors play in determining how a group of professionals searches for and selects information. The central question concerns the nature of the relationships between these contextual factors, specifically between the genres in the document collection and the tasks of the searcher, with an aim to exploit such relationships to improve workplace information retrieval. Research was conducted through multiple studies in three phases, moving from an exploratory study of workplace information behaviour to a controlled experimental user study. Findings confirm that workplace context shapes search behaviour. This relationship is modeled as a set of key contextual factors and sets of context-dependent access constraints, preferred document characteristics, and search strategies. Among the contextual factors identified, work tasks and information tasks were found to be significantly associated with document genres. This task-genre relationship was modeled as a matrix of associations between domain-specific task and genre taxonomies and successfully implemented as a filtering component in a workplace search system. This is the first major study of the relationship between task and genre in information seeking and of its application to information retrieval systems.

Prior research has indicated that laypeople construct mental representations of physical symptoms in order to attempt to understand illness (e.g., Leventhal, Safer, Panagis, 1983; Leventhal & Contrada, 1987; Lau, Bernard, & Hartman, 1989). These "illness representations" are influenced by prior experience with and prior knowledge about illness as well as efforts to seek additional information through social channels or media. More and more, the internet is a prominent source of health information, especially for older adults (aged 50 year and up). Yet, few studies have systematically examined how older adults search for health information online. Similarly, recent trends in healthcare such as health consumerism assume that patients will be more empowered if they have access to more information. However, little has been done to investigate whether patients, in fact, feel more empowered after acquiring online health information. The current study examined the online health information seeking of older adults (N = 79) in order to determine the cognitive and diagnostic processes that older adults use to acquire information. Older adults read a vignette which depicted one of two common illnesses and then were asked to "think-aloud" while they attempted to diagnose the illness. Older adults then diagnosed the illness using either a traditional search engine (Google) or popular self-diagnosis tool (WebMD Symptom Checker), and answered questions about illness representations, cognitive effort, web interactivity, and feelings of empowerment after the search. Quantitative results showed inconsistent change in illness representations. Plausible reasons for a lack of findings are discussed. Participants who used WebMD perceived greater cognitive effort while using the computer program than those who used Google, and participants who were inaccurate in their diagnosis perceived greater cognitive effort of diagnosing than those who were accurate. Accuracy was unrelated to perceived interactivity, age, or search method. Participants 50-64 years old found a new version of WebMD to be less interactive than Google. In contrast, participants 65 years or older perceived no difference in interactivity depending upon search method. In terms of empowerment, participants who used Google perceived greater choice than WebMD. There were no differences in feelings of competence depending upon search method. Qualitative results showed that participants spent the majority of time navigating the computer and processing health information. Most participants diagnosed the illness by eliminating diseases whose symptoms did not match the symptoms of the illness vignette. Participants tended to visit commercial health websites such as Everyday Health and begin their information search by typing a vignette symptom into the search bar. Participants who were 65 years or older were less confident about their diagnosis than 50-64 year old participants. Finally, participants who used Google to diagnose were more likely to comment about the credibility of the information found when compared to those who used WebMD. The current study found no change in illness representations after an online information search. However, this produces questions as to the amount of time in which the layperson constructs his/her illness representation. In addition, few differences in interactivity, accuracy, or empowerment were found between an online health information search conducted with a search engine as compared to a self-diagnosis tool. However, individual differences suggest that different age cohorts may prefer information to be presented in different ways which could influence web design. Further studies in human-computer interaction and health cognition may be able to answer the questions that arose.

We report on a study of how people look for information within email, files, and the Web. When locating a document or searching for a specific answer, people relied on their contextual knowledge of their information target to help them find it, often associating the target with a specific document. They appeared to prefer to use this contextual information as a guide in navigating locally in small steps to the desired document rather than directly jumping to their target. We found this behavior was especially true for people with unstructured information organization. We discuss the implications of our findings for the design of personal information management tools.

Relationships among Working Experience, Information-Seeking Behaviors and Job Satisfaction ¡Ð taking the MBAs as examples Abstract As the domestic economy develops and international managerial environment becomes more complicate and competitive, managerial and administrative educations in universities grow a lot. Thousands of newly-graduated MBAs take their jobs in various industries. These MBAs are becoming more and more important in Taiwan. Under the impact of the fast growing internet applications and knowledge economy, companies that hire MBA graduates expect them to adjust to their working environment as soon as possible so that they can apply what they have learned to their jobs. Therefore, issues related to organizational socializations are often discussed. However, most researches often explore the influence to the adjustments upon works from the point of view of organizations. However, Studies of organizational socialization based on personal behavior factorial analysis are few. Nevertheless, newcomers¡¦ previous working experience and information-seeking behaviors do affect their working experience and socialization in the company where they stay. And, this point is getting focused. Thus, MBA newcomers in companies are the objects of this study. The study will focus on the personal factors, behaviors, specific contents of socialization levels that affect directly or indirectly the MBAs as newcomers¡¦ working experience before and after they work in the firms. Also, the study hopes the results can bring some help for companies to manage those MBA newcomers of administrative experts. Numerous recently-graduated MBAs who had worked for 3-4 months and 10-12 months in their first jobs were asked to fill in the questionnaires. After analyzing the data , the results are stated as below: ¢¹. Differences of organization socialization due to different working experience. 1.Those who have part-time work more than 25 months can understand practices in an organization more easily then those of 1-12 months. 2.The newcomers who have formal working experience before studying in graduate school can understand professional terms about their current jobs and the meaning behind them better than the ones without formal working experience. 3.If there is partial similarity among current job and previous ones, the results would be: (1) the possibility of maintaining satisfying working relationships with others is higher than the one whose current and previous job have there is no similarity at all. (2) Newcomers could understand the organizational goals and values better than those whose current jobs are totally different from previous ones. ¢º. Differences of job satisfaction due to different working experiences 1.Intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction will be higher if the newcomers don¡¦t have part-time working experience previously. 2.The extrinsic satisfaction that current job is totally different from previous ones is higher than the extrinsic satisfaction that it is only partially similar among current and previous jobs. ІІІ.The influences of working experience, information seeking upon levels of organizational socialization, job satisfaction and influences of organizational socialization upon socialization in organizations. 1.Newcomers could have better comprehension of organizational goals and values when their current jobs are similar with previous ones. 2.Intrinsic satisfaction is higher if current jobs are similar with previous ones. 3.If information-seeking is reached by ¡§ testing¡¨, the possibility to gain successful & satisfying working relationships with members in the organizations decreases and so do the level of understanding organizational goals and values. 4.Asking the third party can help bring more extrinsic satisfaction. Using testing as the method to reach information seeking may decrease levels of general satisfaction. 5.General satisfaction is higher when the newcomers understand the characteristics of organizational practices better. Extrinsic satisfaction will be higher when the newcomers have better comprehension of certain specific terms or languages within the organizations. Those who have better and more correct comprehension of organizational goals and values reach higher intrinsic, extrinsic satisfaction and general satisfaction. ¢¼. The mediating effect of organizational socialization content 1.The similarity among current and previous jobs affects the level of intrinsic satisfaction indirectly through the organizational socialization content. 2.The level of organizational socialization is the mediating effect when discussing the relations between information-seeking behaviors, general satisfaction and extrinsic satisfaction. ¢½. The moderating effect of role stress. Most role stress in the lower-grades groups influences the organizational socialization content and job satisfaction more than higher-grades groups, specially for the intrinsic and general satisfaction. Key words: newcomers, working experience, information-seeking behaviors, role stress, job satisfaction.

This dissertation seeks to understand how the need for orientation (NFO) and motivated reasoning influence the agenda-setting process at the level of the individual by examining whether and to what extent the two types of motivations guide individuals to process information differently, thereby resulting in differences in the second level of agenda-setting effects. The first motivation, the need for orientation (NFO), was developed as part of the agenda-setting theory in communication studies, while the other set of motivations (i.e., accuracy and directional goals) was introduced by the theory of motivated reasoning that was developed in the field of psychology. By combining the two motivations - NFO and motivated reasoning - this study demonstrated that the role of NFO on the agenda setting process was moderated by motivated reasoning, accuracy and directional goals. In other words, participants with High-NFO who used accuracy goals that motivated them to seek information in accurate ways searched for more news about unemployment which was manipulated as the most salient attribute. Their information seeking behaviors, in turn, led to higher agenda-setting effects. By comparison, participants with High-NFO who used directional goals to seek information that was congruent with their prior perspectives or perceptions were less likely to seek information about unemployment and showed lower agenda-setting effects. Overall, the findings of this study suggest that individuals’ motivation to seek more information about an issue (NFO) may not always result in higher agenda-setting effects: if their motivations are biased by strong prior perceptions or perspectives, then their eagerness to seek information may blind them to what the media cover. Individuals’ motivations are expected to play an increasingly important role in their information seeking behaviors in the new media environment where people have unprecedented opportunities to access a broad range of information that varies in content as well as perspectives. Implications for the findings of this study and for the role of the media in a democratic society are also discussed. / text

Abstract Background: There is insufficient research about the health information seeking, access, and usage among immigrants to the United States, who, face health disparities associated with their immigrant status. Health-information seeking behaviors and attitudes, unique to immigrants, need to be considered as one set of factors contributing to health disparities. Objective: This thesis focused on identifying differences in information seeking behaviors and attitudes between natal and immigrant US residents and the subset who had either themselves had been diagnosed with cancer or who had a family member diagnosed with cancer. Methods/Analyses: Nationally representative Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) data (HINTS4Cycle 3), collected from a sample of respondents (N=3185) by mail between September and December 2013, was used for these analyses. Sample weights were applied during SAS data analysis to account for the complex survey design. Analyses assessed the frequencies of health information seeking behaviors and attitudes of natal versus immigrant US residents. Results: Both natal and immigrant US residents indicated that the Internet was the most popular choice for seeking health or medical information (69.9% and 69.8%, respectively), with the next highest being doctor, healthcare provider, or cancer organization combined (14.3% and 17.1%, respectively). These differences in use of information sources were not significant. Both natal and immigrant US residents “strongly agreed” or “agreed” that they were frustrated (68.1% and 65.8%, respectively) and were concerned about the quality of the information (52.9% and 54.8%, respectively) during the last time they searched for health information. Again, these differences in attitudes toward information were not significant. On the other hand, compared to natal US residents, immigrant US residents were more likely to state that their most recent search took a lot of effort (35.2% and 46.1%, respectively, p=.01). There were also moderate and significant differences between natal and immigrant respondents’ trust toward information from government health agencies (69.3% and 81.3%, respectively, p About one-third (30.2%) of immigrant US residents reported that they spoke English “not well” or “not well at all.” Among the immigrant US residents, the Internet was the source most commonly chosen by both groups (Speak English “very well,” or “well” and speak English “not well” or “not at all”) as the source they went to first during their most recent search for health or medical information (78.1% and 45.8%, respectively, p Conclusions: There are important differences between Internet-related health information seeking behaviors and attitudes of natal US residents and immigrant US residents.

Consumer behavior has long suggested the importance of prior knowledge in understanding behavior. In spite of the vast amount of research in this area, there is a vacuum regarding to what extent an individual applies his/her knowledge in decision-making situations (a concept from economic psychology). An individual may have the knowledge but might not use it or apply it when making decisions. This is of great importance, especially within a health context where decisions may result in life or death situations. In addition, operationalizations of dimensions of prior knowledge within the consumer behavior field have been inconsistent. To eliminate these gaps in prior research and extend the consumer behavior literature this dissertation draws upon the consumer behavior and economic-psychology literatures to investigate the impact of six dimensions of prior knowledge on health information-seeking and disease prevention behaviors. The case of HPV is used here to examine the theoretical relationships. This dissertation is also of particular interest to better understanding direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising. DTC advertising usually provides information to consumers through the listing of sources consumers can go to, other than providing disease prevention information within the message itself. Hence, examining how prior knowledge impacts information-seeking and prevention behaviors can help guide the development of more effective DTC messages. Results show that information-seeking intentions are predicted by how much consumers think they know and how much of their knowledge they apply in decision-making situations. Also, consumers who have high confidence in using their knowledge are more likely to use external (as opposed to internal) sources of information. In addition, prevention behaviors are predicted by how much consumers know about the disease, how much they think they know and their experience with the disease. This investigation helps guide the development of future DTC campaigns, in terms of motivating consumers to seek additional information, and take the recommended preventative actions; based on consumers’ prior knowledge set. In conclusion, this dissertation extends the literature on the role of prior knowledge in consumer decision-making on multiple levels and provides interesting findings for future research. / text

Artificial Intelligence Lab, Department of MIS, University of Arizona / This paper describes the development and testing of the Medical Concept Mapper as an aid to providing synonyms and semantically related concepts to improve searching. All terms are related to the userquery and fit into the query context. The system is unique because its five components combine humancreated and computer-generated elements. The Arizona Noun Phraser extracts phrases from natural language user queries. WordNet and the UMLS Metathesaurus provide synonyms. The Arizona Concept Space generates conceptually related terms. Semantic relationships between queries and concepts are established using the UMLS Semantic Net. Two user studies conducted to evaluate the system are described.

This article looks at how the consumer of data, information and knowledge becomes increasingly important in relation to the design and development of electronic information products and services. In web based environment, where products are bought and sold, such services are increasingly being â tailoredâ to suit the individual and community they serve. However, current situation has meant that there is an increasing need to provide access to data, information and knowledge electronically. Reasons for this include the growing number of potential users who value and need information but cannot or may not want to be serviced face-to-face even when remote access to electronic resources has become prevalent. There is a need to create electronic environments that can relate to the complex cultural, sociological and psychological needs of the consumer. This paper provides an overview of current theories and knowledge about the information consumer. It is informed by the commoditization of information and communication tech-nologies (ICTs), products and services, the use and non-use of information in Library and In-formation Science (LIS) discipline, the need to create appropriate learning environments and lastly, the perception that all people should have equal access to such products and services and that society should be inclusive. Examples are also provided of how and where knowledge is applied, highlighting the importance of IB knowledge. The paper concludes that a deeper understanding is needs to be developed as current application of knowledge about the information consumer is rudimentary. There is a need to apply and test current knowledge.