Information seeking behaviors of graduate students at the Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University
Main Article Content
Abstract
Background : In graduate studies students focus on seeking knowledge and expertise. Students need to access different sources to research and create new knowledge. The information seeking from various sources to meet
the demand is absolutely necessary. As a result, this study use Information Seeking Behaviors framework to scrutinize the graduate students behavior in order to adopt as guidelines for information services.
Objectives : To study the quest for information and compares the information seeking behavior of graduate students, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University.
Methods : The sample size in this study was 187 graduate students at the Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University enrolling in the first semester of the academic year 2015. 169 questionnaires were returned. The research instrument in this study was a questionnaire validated by experts and Cronbach’s alpha = 0.96 the statistics used were percentage, frequency, mean, standard deviation, t – test and one way ANOVA
Results : Most of students purpose was to seek for information for their thesis or dissertation. The information seeking behavior consisting of:
1. Searching the relevant literature/bibliography
2. Browsing online databases in the library
3. Listing bibliography
4. Digesting information from a reliable source
5. On serving information from social media
6. Extracting information from abstract/study/research/methodology papers, books, journals and reference sources
7. Cross checking the information from the sources/references 8. Analyzing information to complete the objectives. It is found that students with different majors and degree programs have similar information seeking behavior.
Conclusion : Graduate students at the Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University are seeking information for their thesis or dissertation. In sum, students with different levels of study have no significant difference in information seeking behavior.