The relationship between undergraduates' epistemological beliefs, reflective judgment, and their information-seeking behavior

Authors:
Ethelene Whitmire
Affiliations:
School of Library and Information Studies, University of Wisconsin--Madison, Helen C. White Hall, 600 North Park Street, Madison, WI
Venue:
Information Processing and Management: an International Journal
Year:
2004

Citing 3
Cited 2

Believe it or not: factors influencing credibility on the Web

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
Judgement of information quality and cognitive authority in the Web

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
Epistemology and the socio-cognitive perspective in information science

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology

Doctors' online information needs, cognitive search strategies, and judgments of information quality and cognitive authority: How predictive judgments introduce bias into cognitive search models

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
The role of Internet-specific epistemic beliefs in laypersons' source evaluations and decisions during Web search on a medical issue

Computers in Human Behavior

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

During the fall 2001 semester 15 first-year undergraduates were interviewed about their information-seeking behavior. Undergraduates completed a short-answer questionnaire, the Measure of Epistemological Reflection, measuring their epistemological beliefs and searched the Web and an online public access catalog using tasks from the Reflective Judgment Interview that assessed their reflective judgment level. Undergraduates talked aloud while searching digital environments about the decisions they were making about the information they encountered while transaction analyses software (Lotus ScreenCam) recorded both their search moves and their decision-making through verbal protocol analysis. Analyses included examining the relationship between undergraduates' epistemological beliefs and reflective judgment and how they searched for information in these digital environments. Results indicated that there was a relationship between epistemological beliefs and reflective judgment and information-seeking behavior. Undergraduates' at higher stages of epistemological development exhibited the ability to handle conflicting information sources and to recognize authoritative information sources.