Information seeking behavior of engineering graduate students a study based on Tom Wilson’s model

ABSTRACT

Introduction:

This study investigates the information behavior of engineering graduate students according to CAPES’ classification: Production Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Naval and Oceanic Engineering.

Objective:

The aim was to verify the searching and obtaining of information by graduate students and to compare the information behavior of these four groups included in the study. Participants were students of 20 graduate programs with a grade 5 or higher in the Capes’ assessment. A web-based questionnaire with 15 questions was applied for data collect. The SPSS software was used to verify the relations between the active and passive information seeking behavior and information resources selection among students.

Results:

The results indicate that graduate students active seek information mainly. They have difficulties in interacting with databases and do not use keywords and Boolean operators. Information resources most used were scientific journals, books, theses and dissertations. This study observed that graduate students do not present significant differences in their information behavior, suggesting that despite the specificities of each subarea, the graduate students have similar informational behavior.

Conclusion:

It was concluded that specificities of Engineering have been not influenced the students’ information behavior.

KEYWORDS:
User behavior; Information users; Academic libraries; Engineering