CITATION AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
Cite as: Cheuk, W-Y, B. (1999, May). The derivation of a “situational” information seeking and use process model in the workplace: Employing Sense-Making. Paper presented at a non-divisional workshop held at the meeting of the International Communication Association, San Francisco.
© Bonnie Wai-yi Cheuk (1999).

ESSENCE OF PROJECT:
The essence of my project is to employ Sense-Making to provide a new dimension to understand human information seeking and use (ISU) process. In the field of information and library studies (LIS), this project belongs to the research genre of investigating information needs, information seeking and use behavior. A review of the literature on information seeking and use behavior shows that information seeking has generally been accepted as a dynamic and non-linear process, within which information needs and information seeking behaviors are subject to change. Numerous studies have been carried out to identify factors that affect human needs and information seeking behavior in different contexts. Some common factors include work tasks, education background, perception of the problems, demography, personality type, gender etc.

However, we still know little about how and why people exhibit different information seeking behavior at different times (no matter as an individual or as a group). A review into the literature has provided clues to this problem. The first problem noted is that many of the research studies have not yet fully acknowledged information seeking as a “dynamic process”, i.e. they have not taken into account the continuous change in time-space in the process of information seeking. Thus, researchers have been placing emphasis in identifying factors which are assumed to have constant effect on information seeking behavior for people-as-a-group (e.g. students, engineers, artists etc.) at all time-space throughout their information seeking process.

Simply speaking, there is a lack of research questions that address: Why do people exhibit information behavior X in Time 1? Why do people exhibit information behavior Y in Time 2? Why do people change their information behavior from X to Y, when they go from Time 1 to Time 2 (other than the factors that are assumed to have constant effect at all time-space)? Related to the first problem, the second problem in understanding human information seeking process lies in the fact that people-as-a-group has been readily accepted as a critical “factor” which have an impact on information seeking behavior in all time-spaces. Common research questions being addressed include: What information needs do Group X have? What information sources do Group X use? What information seeking behavior does Group X exhibit?

For the questions listed above, Group X can referred to high school students, university students, scientists, social scientists, engineers, securities analysts, doctors, nurses, legal professionals, children, everyday citizens etc. The same set of questions is often use to study another group (e.g. Group Y), and researchers aim at identifying similar and different information seeking behavior between the two groups. Using this approach of studying people-as-a-group, we learn a lot about information needs and information-seeking behavior of different groups. For instance, we know that in choosing information sources, academics prefer journals, engineers rather prefer to use internal reports, and auditors like to gather information by talking to people. The question is how can we make generalizations from the diverse findings, in developing a generic understanding of human information seeking behavior? This traditional approach does not seem to provide a way out.

The third problem in understanding the dynamic nature of human information seeking process is that people are usually treated as a group, rather than as individuals. Most user studies aim at identifying “core” information needs that people-as-a-group have and “core” information seeking strategies that most people-as-a-group exhibit, and neglect findings on other “non-core” strategies that individuals exhibit less frequently. The drawback of adopting this kind of “statistical significant” approach in identifying “core” information needs and seeking behavior is that “diverse” information needs and information seeking behavior are not being considered seriously. In other words, many user studies have “silenced” the minority and the individual’s voice.

This problem has been noted, as many other user studies have shown that even among a group of students, each student could choose different ways to gather information to complete their assignments. Also, even for a same person, he/she can choose to search information (or judge information relevance) in different ways at two different times, given that he/she has to complete similar tasks. With these limitations identified, I started my project with the following objectives: 1) To fully acknowledge the dynamic nature of human information seeking process, this research has to focus on “factors” that have effects on information needs and individual information behavior at different moments of time-space (rather than across time space); 2) To study the information needs and seeking behavior of people belonging to different groups, but with the ultimate aim to derive findings that can be generalized across the groups, and thus making it possible to develop a generalized model of human information seeking and use process; 3) To study information needs and information seeking behavior by not only listening to the “core” voices from people-as-a-group, but also fully acknowledging the presence of “diverse” and “minority” information seeking behavior of individuals-in-situation.

In summary, the essence of this project is to study information seeking and use as a dynamic process. The ultimate aim is to develop an information seeking and use process model in the workplace context, which can illustrate the dynamic and diverse information seeking behavior exhibited by each individual-in-situation. The workplace environment is chosen to be the overall context of the research. Altogether 24 people belonging to three different workplaces are interviewed. They are 8 auditors, 8 engineers and 8 architects. The main research question is: For each professional group, what information needs do individuals have and what information seeking behavior do individuals exhibit at different time-space moments (when they need to seek and use information to complete their work tasks)? Data collected from each professional group was first analyzed separately. After having identified the respondents’ (from the three workplaces) information needs and behavior at different time-space moments, the results are compared in order to address this further question: To what extent is it possible to generalize information needs and information seeking behavior (anchored at time-space moments) from one professional group to another? To this end, Sense-Making Methodology was chosen because it allows the exploration of diversity at different time-spaces. The micro-moment time-line interview was used to collect qualitative data on how people in the workplace context seek and use information to complete their work tasks. Data analysis has been completed and currently, I am in the process of writing up the results.

THE REASONS I TOOK THIS ROAD:
Aside from the reasons explained earlier on how Sense-Making can allow the exploration of information seeking as a real dynamic process, there is another reason to employ Sense-Making to study human information seeking process. Since the mid-1980s, most of the discussions on human information needs, information seeking and use have pointed out that Sense-Making has informed their studies. Sense-Making is often readily accepted and quoted as an overarching information seeking process, whereby people see an information gap and have to exhibit information seeking behavior to fill their gap. Sense-Making has been interpreted and applied in a variety of ways. Many studies focused on one part of Sense-Making experience (e.g. focus on identifying information needs/gaps, information sources used, or information use). Many other studies have applied micro-moment time-line interviews to collect data. However, none of the studies that I know of has made a complete use of what the Sense-Making framework offers. I took this road to apply the whole Sense-Making experience (i.e., situation-gap-use) as fully as possible in order to come up with an optimal information seeking process model, based on empirical studies and relevant to the workplace context.

THE BEST OF WHAT I HAVE ACHIEVED:
1) Substantiated the usefulness of employing Sense-Making in getting rich time-space anchored qualitative data; 2) Paid attention to both the common information seeking behavior, as well as the uncommon behavior (which I would probably leave them out if I am not apply Sense-Making); 3) Found that people-belonging-to-the-same-professional-group do not have the same information needs, use similar information sources and channels, as well as organize and evaluate information at all times (i.e. across time-space); 4) Identified 10 “ISU situations” which are associated with 10 consistent sets of information needs and information seeking behavior; 5) Found the transferability of 7 “ISU situations” and each of their associated set of information seeking behavior to all the three professional groups interviewed; 6) Derived a “situational” information seeking and use process model in the workplace context.

WHAT HAS BEEN HELPFUL:
1) My understanding of qualitative research methodology and phenomenology has been useful to understand the Sense-Making experience; 2) Writing up my understanding of Sense-Making and discussing with colleagues who are not familiar with Sense-Making helps. My experience shows that they find it difficult to accept Sense-Making immediately, as they are more mostly comfortable in relating information seeking behavior to structural constraints (e.g. demography, work tasks, personality etc.). As a result, they ask me a lot of challenging questions, and I have to go back and think and do more readings, which greatly helped to increase my understanding of Sense-Making; 3) In the field of library and information studies, the works of Taylor (1986), Belkin (1993), Katzer & Fletcher (1992), among others, have been useful and complement Sense-Making well; 4) A willingness to bracket out traditional approaches and understanding of information needs, information seeking and use, and to have the courage to try out an alternative, “nontraditional” methodology is helpful.

WHAT I HAVE STRUGGLED WITH:
1) At first, I had to struggle with what Sense-Making is, and how can it be applicable to study information seeking and use. At that time, I found Sense-Making papers very challenging, and I had to read each paper at least five times to reach an understanding; 2) In the beginning, I took the Sense-Making triangle literally and linearly, and considered Sense-Making as a three step process of first seeing a gap, then defining the situation, followed by taking responsive action to fill the gap. I had to struggle to see that the Sense-Making experience is a holistic experience situated in time-space, such that the three components are interacting and affecting one another; 3) At one time, I was struggling with whether “information needs” equate to “gap” in the Sense-Making triangle, and later realized that “information needs” is a force in the middle of “gap”, “situation” and “help/use”; 4) At one time, I was struggling with the meaning of “situation” in the Sense-Making triangle, and hoping to get a recipe of what exactly “situation” is referring to. I wondered whether “level of fatigue”, “the availability of information facilities” were considered situations. I had to struggle to see that “situation” refers to any factor that involves movement, force and a change in time-space; 5) At one time, I was struggling with how could it be possible to not focus on structural constraints in understanding human information seeking behavior. I had to struggle to realize that Sense-Making does acknowledge the force of the structural constraints, but finds it more meaningful to listen to the “diverse” voices which are not under structural control;

6) During data analysis, because Sense-Making is a gap-bridging moment, (i.e. it is a verb-ing process rather than a state), I had to be careful not to use traditional approaches to analyze the data. I struggled in tolerating the “changing” nature of elements (e.g. definition of information, feelings) which are transformed as one goes through the Sense-Making process; 7) For example, in exploring how people define “information” at a particular time-space moments. I find it difficult to assign a single definition of “information” to one particular time-space moment. The respondents may describe they need to gather information on “analysis of product failure trends”, but they see themselves as needing to collect “raw data on the number of occurrences of product failure”. During data analysis, I asked myself “what information do they need in this time-space moment?” Should I conclude the respondents need “raw data” or “analyzed data” or both? In the end, I included both definitions in the analysis. (“Analyzed data” is analyzed as how the respondents want to put the information into use, and both “analyzed data” and “raw data” are information that the respondents look for at this stage); 8) Similar problems arise in analyzing the respondents’ feelings at particular time-space moments. When a respondent sees himself as in a situation (e.g. ideas-rejecting situation), he feels “frustrated”. But having gathered information, he may feel “happy”. However, during the interview, when you ask the respondents about their feelings at particular time-space moments, they may just say “I am happy (because eventually I get what I need)”. I have to struggle carefully to gather and distinguish the respondents’ feelings “before” the time they enter or “after” they leave a particular time-space moment; 9) I also had to struggle with the definition of “information” as defined by the respondents from different perspectives. A typical example for the auditors is that when they present the final auditor’s comment to the clients. They see what they are providing as “value-added information” to the clients, but “useless information” to themselves because they already have knowledge of the findings; 10) I have struggled between presenting my analysis in a quantitative way (i.e. to present the information seeking strategies as criterion variable in each ISU situation) versus presenting my analysis in a qualitative way (i.e. to present information seeking strategies as themes identified from the data analysis and labeled as different ISU situations); 11) I had to struggle with the Sense-Making assumption that we should study people as individuals-in-situation rather than as people-as-a-group, while at the same time, I was choosing to study three different professional groups; 12) I have to struggle to derive a generalized “situational” information seeking and use process model from the three professional groups. In particular, I struggled with whether I should derive a model which presents the “core” 7 “ISU situations” that are shared by the three groups, versus the presentation of the 10 “ISU situations” that people may possibly experience in different workplaces; 13) I had to struggle to present my information seeking and use process model as different from other information seeking process models which also take into account the changing time-space in the process (e.g. Kuhlthau’s model); 14) I had to struggle with the task-based approach to study information-seeking behavior, which argues that if we divide the broad work task into very fine sub-tasks, one would be able to predict information needs and information-seeking behavior accurately. I struggled to see the differences between a “work task/sub-task” and an “information task”, whereby the later is a sub-set of the former, and is directly related to information needs, information seeking and use.

WHAT WOULD HELP NOW:
1) Comments on my findings on the 10 ISU situations and the associated information strategies; 2) Comments on what you see as the usefulness of my ISU process model when compared to other information seeking process model; 3) Tips/comments/solutions on the struggle and my understanding of Sense-Making as presented in the section above.

PROJECT ABSTRACT:
The aim of the project is to develop a model to describe the dynamic nature of human information seeking and use process in the workplace contexts. This is because I am not satisfied with many user studies which have not fully acknowledged information seeking as a “process”, whereby people’s information need and information seeking behavior are subject to change at different times. Also, I feel that there are a limited number of information seeking process models that can guide researchers to study information seeking as a “real” process. To this end, three professional groups, namely auditors, architects and engineers, were interviewed using micro-moment time-line interviews, with an aim to find out what information-seeking behavior each individual exhibits at particular time-space moments. This project concluded with the derivation of a “situational” information seeking and use (ISU) process model in the workplace context. The model is made up of: a) a time-line; b) a set of 10 ISU situations (which can be experienced at any time sequence) (1); c) a set of information seeking behaviors that is associated with each “ISU situation.” It is proposed that people at work go through this “situational” information seeking and use process model by moving from one “ISU situation” to another from Time 1 to Time 2, thereby exhibiting different information seeking behavior at different times.

REFERENCES:
(For references to works by Dervin and colleagues, see Dervin’s writings: Chronological listing.)

Belkin, N.J. (1993). Interaction with Texts: Information Retrieval as Information Seeking Behavior. In G. Knorz, J. Krause & Ch. Womser-Hacker (Eds.), Information Retrieval ’93: von der Modellierung zur Anwendung (Proceedings of the First Conference of the Gesellschaft fur Informatik Fachgruppe Information Retrieval), (pp.55-66). Konstanz, GERMANY: Universitatsverlag Konstaz.

Katzer, J. & Fletcher, P. T. (1992). The information environment of managers. In Williams, M. E. (Ed.), Annual review of information science and technology (ARIST), 27, 227-263. NJ: Learned Information.

Macmullin, S. E. & Taylor, R. S. (1984). Problem dimensions and information traits. Information Society, 3 (1), 91-111.

Savolainen, R. (1993). The Sense-Making theory: Reviewing the interests of a user-centered approach to information seeking and use. Information Processing and Management, 29 (1), 13-28.

Taylor, R. S. (1986). Value-added processes in information systems. Norwood, NJ : Ablex.

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(1)The 10 ISU Situations are:
Task initiating: needing to learn more about a new job for further planning
Focus Forming: needing to gather more information to form a better focus
Ideas Assuming: needing to learn more on specific areas
Ideas Rejecting: needing to gather information to deal with a conflicting/unexpected situation
Ideas Confirming: needing to gather evidence make confirmation
Ideas Finalizing: needing to gather information to make decision
Ideas Sharing: needing to share information with others
Design Generating: needing to gather information to come up with design
Approval Seeking: needing to seek official approval before carry on with the work
Approval Granting: needing to gather information before granting approval to others

OTHER MATERIALS BY THIS AUTHOR ON THIS WEB SITE:
See: http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/AAauthors/authorlistcheuk.html