Library and Information Science Commons^™

Infoliteracy@Adistance: Creating Opportunities To Reach (Instruct) Distance Students, Mirah J. Dow, Mohommed Algarni, Heidi Blackburn, Karen Diller, Abdullahi Musa, Padma Polepeddi, Brian Schwartz, Terri Summey, Sandra Valenti

Criss Library Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

This article offers a theoretical model of online, graduate student information seeking behavior. The qualitative methodology used to gather data for the development of the model included an electronic survey and semi-structured interviews conducted online using Adobe Connect Pro™. Participating in the study were 238 graduate students enrolled in at least one online course at a mid-western university. Data analysis included use of Zoomerang™ reports to interpret survey data, and content analysis of interview transcriptions. The resulting evolution of the Bates’ (2002) theoretical model includes new two modes of information seeking: scrutinizing (directed, dynamic), and being alert (undirected, dynamic). The …