Deep, efficient, and dialogic study of undergraduate information seeking and use: A methodological exploration

Abstract

Our purpose is to present the rationale and results of a pilot study applying a meta-theoretically derived approach to focus group or semi-structured group interviewing as a means of obtaining deep data efficiently and dialogically. The project was designed to meet needs of both the senior author (a methodologist) and junior author (a librarian). The exemplar was undergraduate information seeking and use for meeting class assignments. Particular focus was on understanding when and why students decided between quick internet-only versus thorough searches involving multiple sources. The focus group approach was informed by Dervin's Sense-Making Methodology (SMM). Emphasis for this presentation is methodological --to describe the approach and to illustrate the potentials for group interviewing. Empirical results provided here are for illustration only. The pertinent literature review emphasizes methodological sources. The authors are collecting more data from a range of different academic informants and expect to develop empirically anchored reports in the near future. KeywordsInformation seeking and use, focus group interviewing, semi-structured group interviewing, sense-making, methodology, undergraduates LINK TO FIGURESThis paper refers to figures that we have incorporated in a full version of this paper on a web-site at: http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sensemaking/asist2010poster.pdf THE CHALLENGE OF FOCUS GROUP INTERVIEWINGFocus group interviewing has become increasingly popular (Morgan, 2002) as it allows researchers and practitioners a relatively inexpensive and rapid method of getting a handle on a question of interest. Numerous writings attend to multiple focus group theories and practices. These emphasize primarily theories of interpersonal, intergroup, intercultural, and trans-border communication. These writings also offer various examples for practice, usually in formulaic ways.Despite this attention, there is very little work that actually theorizes interviewing as communication practice (Briggs, 1986;Dervin & Foreman-Wernet, 2003;Dervin, 2008). Instead the emphasis is on gaining apriori understandings of cultures and group dynamics rather than specific theoretically-guided procedures of communicating that acknowledge how communicating works. Dervin calls the former "noun" approaches to interviewing. The SMM approach focuses interviewing practice on asking queries that address not only how informants define things but how they see themselves moving and bridging gaps from one situated sensemaking instance to another. This SMM "verbing " approach to interviewing mandates a dialogic structuring where the informant is invited as theorist to not only describe his/her material and phenomenological worlds but to ascribe causes and outcomes. Two central mandates drawn from SMM's philosophic underpinnings include: a) disciplining communicating with prescribed talking and listening turn-takings; and b) limiting spontaneity in order to constrain the impact of powerful interests and habitual commun...

Adolescents' information‐creating behavior embedded in digital Media practice using scratch

“…Qualitative data were collected from two face‐to‐face group interviews and four online individual interviews using the SMM interview technique (Dervin, , ; Dervin & Devakos, ).…”

“…While SMM has been widely applied since its introduction to LIS in the 1970s, the SMM approach to group interviewing was recently developed and pilot tested on undergraduate informants by Dervin and Devakos (). The study demonstrated in this article applied the SMM group interview approach with IJIMS students in order to obtain deep and honest data efficiently and dialogically.…”