Andrew K. Shenton

Strategies for ensuring trustworthiness in qualitative research projects

Although many critics are reluctant to accept the trustworthiness of qualitative research, frameworks for ensuring rigour in this form of work have been in existence for many years. Guba’s constructs, in particular, have won considerable favour and form the focus of this paper. Here researchers seek to satisfy four criteria. In addressing credibility, investigators attempt to demonstrate that a true picture of the phenomenon under scrutiny is being presented. To allow transferability, they provide sufficient detail of the context of the fieldwork for a reader to be able to decide whether the prevailing environment is similar to another situation with which he or she is familiar and whether the findings can justifiably be applied to the other setting. The meeting of the dependability criterion is difficult in qualitative work, although researchers should at least strive to enable a future investigator to repeat the study. Finally, to achieve confirmability, researchers must take steps to demonstrate that findings emerge from the data and not their own predispositions. The paper concludes by suggesting that it is the responsibility of research methods teachers to ensure that this or a comparable model for ensuring trustworthiness is followed by students undertaking a qualitative inquiry.

Models of young people’s information seeking

Although models form a typical outcome of modern research in library and information science, few have been constructed to represent the information behaviour of young people. This article reviews those models that have been developed and outlines several that have emerged from a recent research project undertaken in north-east England with four-to eighteen-year-olds. The first of the new models is devoted to general patterns in the informants’ information seeking, regardless of the type of source exploited. It begins with the development of an information need and concludes with the making of decisions with regard to the completion of a search. The remaining four models are smaller scale in nature, with each covering the use of one of the following - books, CD-ROM software, the Internet or other people. The article concludes by considering the value of the models that have been created to populations beyond the sampled youngsters.

Youngsters’ Use of Other People as an Information-Seeking Method

Use of other people has often been found to be the most frequently employed and most successful method by which youngsters obtain information. Nevertheless, significant questions remain largely unanswered, especially with regard to the types of information need that are met via this action, the sorts of people typically approached in order to satisfy needs of particular types, the actions taken by adults in response to youngsters’ approaches to them and the problems that youngsters face when using other people. In an attempt to shed more light on these outstanding issues, this paper draws on the findings of an essentially qualitative project devoted more generally to the information needs and information-seeking action of young people. The article closes by offering recommendations, based on the project’s results, for future practice in the teaching of Information Skills.

Strategies for gaining access to organisations and informants in qualitative studies

One of the most fundamental tasks relating to the undertaking of fieldwork for a qualitative research study lies in “gaining access”. This involves both securing entry into a particular organisation and ensuring that individuals associated with it, such as employees or users, will serve as informants. In terms of the first problem, a range of strategies that may be adopted by the investigator is highlighted in this paper. The methods include using endorsements from “authorities”, gradually phasing one’s entry into the organisation, offering benefits of some kind to managers in the event of their cooperation, responding to gatekeepers’ concerns honestly, demonstrating one’s suitability for entry in terms of professional background and experience, and remaining receptive to managers’ suggestions for the study. To encourage the cooperation of those associated with the organisation, the researcher may well favour a policy of prolonged engagement, seek to blend in with the community, offer incentives where appropriate and acknowledge openly the value of informants’ contributions. These strategies are considered in detail. The article also stresses the importance of gaining the approval of any “third parties” that may be responsible for the welfare of those people whom the researcher has targeted as informants.

Making information literacy relevant

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the problems of a one size fits all approach to information literacy (IL) teaching, and consider how to make the experience more relevant to the learner.Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides a discussion based on an extensive analysis of the literature.Findings – Isolated rote learning, without any self‐motivation on the part of the learner, will limit the degree to which information skills can be applied in other situations. If lifelong learning is the true goal of IL education, information specialists are ideally placed to impart skills that go beyond the ostensibly limited relevance (from a students perspective) of academic assignments.Research limitations/implications – The paper discusses alternative approaches to the teaching of IL based on a review of the literature. It offers new models for consideration for IL practitioners.Originality/value – The paper discusses the role of the learner and their motivation and how librarians can make ...

Viewing information needs through a Johari Window

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to apply to the study of information needs the Johari Window framework that has long been accepted as a useful model for understanding interpersonal communication.Design/methodology/approach – The work presents a newly‐constructed version of the Window to delineate a typology of information needs and to identify implications that emerge for information professionals.Findings – The paper finds that information needs can be seen to fall into five broad categories: needs that are known to the individual but not to the information professional; needs that are known to both parties; needs that are known to the information professional but not the individual; needs that are misunderstood by the individual; and needs that are not known to either the individual or the information professional.Practical implications – Conceptualising information needs in terms of the revised Johari Window highlights how information professionals are of crucial importance in helping clients sa...

When does an academic information need stimulate a school-inspired information want?

This paper explores the nature of school-inspired information wants. It considers how such wants arise and actions taken by youngsters to meet them. The methodology within the study reported was one of interpretivist ethnography, with data collected from two classes of 7- to 8-year-olds in an English primary school via a form of participant observation that incorporated dialogues with pupils and staff. Children were seen to follow up on topics taught in the classroom with their own questions when one or more of seven situations arose. These included instances in which they developed an empathic interest in the protagonists being studied and when they noted inconsistencies in their own understanding. The findings have a range of implications, notably for practices in both education and LIS.

Modelling the information‐seeking behaviour of children and young people: Inspiration from beyond LIS

Purpose – The paper seeks to draw on Sices systems model, itself based on Senges “fixes that fail” archetype, and on data from two previous research projects conducted by one of the authors. The purpose of this paper is to synthesise a new model that portrays the information‐seeking behaviour of children and young people.Design/methodology/approach – The systems model provides the backbone of the new framework but additions, accommodations and revisions were made to ensure that the version featured here represents the phenomenon of information seeking by the young as appropriately as possible in terms of the data that were gathered.Findings – One of the new models most significant characteristics is its emphasis on problems and issues that prevent information seeking from proceeding smoothly. Information seeking is also shown to be an iterative process, with the individual often revisiting previous stages, frequently in response to difficulties.Research limitations/implications – Data were collected fr...

Information behaviour meta‐models

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore meta‐models that pertain to information behaviour. It seeks to highlight the possibilities they offer to researchers wishing to develop their own and to readers more generally interested in information behaviour literature.Design/methodology/approach – Various frameworks that may be regarded as information behaviour meta‐models were examined and three separate types were identified. These are discussed in turn, with particular characteristics of individual meta‐models used to illustrate the types.Findings – A meta‐model is considered here to be a model that has been derived from one or more existing models. Information behaviour meta‐models fall into three categories: those that unify, within one framework, disparate models/theories from a number of areas; those that integrate the fundamentals of several models which share common strands; and those that recast an established model for a particular purpose.Research limitations/implications – The extent of t...

The information‐seeking problems of English high schoolers responding to academic information need

Purpose – The problems experienced by young people when looking for information are significantly under‐researched and this paper aims to attempt to expand the fragmented knowledge base. It concentrates on action taken by English high schoolers to meet academic information needs.Design/methodology/approach – The work draws on qualitative data elicited via an online questionnaire administered in October and November 2006. Thirty‐five participants contributed data on the problems they had encountered.Findings – Inductive coding of the data revealed that over 20 individual problems were apparent. The most frequently mentioned was an inability to locate the desired information. Some of the other issues related to information use, rather than information‐seeking.Research limitations/implications – The project was small scale, with data collected from pupils in only one school. It relied solely on self‐reported data and insight into information‐seeking problems was gained purely in terms of behaviour to satisfy...