Information Seeking Behavior of U.S. Public Health Professionals in the Digital Age: An Exploratory Investigation

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In Folder: Library & Information Science, Ph.D.

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Information Seeking Behavior of U.S. Public Health Professionals in the Digital Age: An Exploratory Investigation

Mahmoud, Sarah - Dissertation

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title: Information Seeking Behavior of U.S. Public Health Professionals in the Digital Age: An Exploratory Investigation

creator: Mahmoud, Sarah

subject: Dissertations, Academic.

description: The purposes of this dissertation research are to establish a better understanding of the obstacles and the causes behind the obstacles that public health professionals experience when they seek work-related information using electronic resources, to investigate the differences in respondents’ confidence with their information searching skills and in respondents’ satisfaction with their institutional support, and to investigate the relationship between the demographic variables and the causes behind obstacles that users experience. A sequential mixed method design was employed for this dissertation research, which involved two data collection phases. In Phase I, in-depth interviews with 12 public health professionals were conducted. In Phase II, nearly 580 public health professionals across the United States participated in an online survey. The results from this dissertation research revealed that there are statistically significant differences in respondents’ confidence with their information searching skills among participants of different work settings and educational backgrounds. Participants who work in academic settings have higher average confidence scores with their information searching skills than those who work in other settings. Participants who have a Ph.D. have higher average confidence scores with their information searching skills than those with other educational backgrounds. In addition, there are statistically significant differences in respondents’ satisfaction with theirinstitutional support for information services provision among participants of different work settings, educational backgrounds, and age groups. Participants who work in academic settings have higher average satisfaction scores with their institutional support in providing information services than those who work in other settings. Participants who have a Ph.D. have higher average satisfaction scores with their institutional support in providing information services than those with other educational backgrounds. Furthermore, participants’ demographic variables—such as work settings, educational backgrounds, and age groups—were related to the causes behind the obstacles that they face during their information seeking process. Since there is a lack of research that focuses on the differences of public health professionals’ confidence and satisfaction among participants of different demographic attributes such as work settings, findings give strong support to the notion that information seeking behavior of public health professionals needs to be looked at in a wider context of users’ demographic attributes. A major outcome of the dissertation research is the recommendation to improve information services toaid public health professionals in overcoming their obstacles so they can succeed in completing their information-based tasks, such as implementing appropriate information management systems to ease information accessibility for future use.

publisher: Simmons College (Boston, Mass.)

contributor:

date: 2018

type: Text

format: 1 PDF (173 Pages)

identifier: td_lis_2018_sm

source:

language: English

relation:

coverage:

rights: Material from the Simmons University Archives collections are made available for study purposes only. For more information, or to request rights to reproduce or reuse any material, contact the University Archives at archives@simmons.edu.

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