The Effect of Teamwork Experience on the Collaborative Information Seeking Behaviors of Students Working in Teams
Open Access
Author:
Raza, Yusuf
Graduate Program:
Information Sciences and Technology
Degree:
Master of Science
Document Type:
Master Thesis
Date of Defense:
November 04, 2009
Committee Members:
Madhu Reddy, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Keywords:
Teamwork Experience Collaborative Infromation Seeking Student teams
Abstract:
Information seeking has primarily been viewed as an individual not collaborative activity. This has led to models and systems that focus on individual information seeking. However, collaboration is becoming increasingly prominent in organizational settings. Yet, we are still in the early stages of understanding collaborative information seeking (CIS) behavior. Consequently, it is important to develop a more detailed understanding of CIS behavior in order to support this behavior through the development of appropriate processes and technologies.
Information seeking is an important aspect of student teamwork. In this thesis, the relationship between experience working in teams and CIS behavior is examined through a survey given to students in three IST 301 classes in Fall, 2007. Through the survey, I examine whether the level of experience that students have working in teams affects their communications methods and information source preferences among other features during CIS activities. I found that the most used communication method during CIS is face to face (f2f) communication and the most frequented source of information is the Internet. I also found that the level of teamwork experience of students did not affect communication or source preferences nor did it affect the obstacles that students may face during CIS activities. This study improves our understanding of CIS behavior in an educational setting and can also help inform designers developing collaborative information retrieval (CIR) tools.
