Correlation Analysis Of Information Seeking Behavior, Self-efficacy And Thinking Style

The rapid development of Internet makes more and more users start to acquireinformation from the Internet. However, faced with the vast digital resources, manyusers cannot find satisfying information. Besides the limitations of seeking ability,information environment, information organization and other factors, psychologicalfactor is also an important factor that affects the seeking results of users. In1996,Bandura put forward that self-efficacy will influence the seeking behavior ofinformation users while Kuhlthau’s information seeking process model also pointedout the impact of cognitive affection on information seeking. However, the researchon the relevant problems always stays at the theoretical exploration for years and thereare few empirical researches. This paper will comb the relevant literatures oninformation seeking behavior theory, self-efficacy theory and thinking style incognitive aspect, propose assumptions and determine the survey contents, and thenexplore the seeking behavior and psychology of users with laboratory method andquestionnaire method. Through learning the characteristics of self-efficacy, thinkingstyle and information seeking, this paper investigates the correlation of the three, andanalyzes whether the user’s information seeking behavior is related with thesepsychological factors. Based on this, it further proposes measures to improve user’sseeking efficiency and help solve the contradictions between the universality and theutilization of information resources.The survey selects50students from a college for testing, and utilizes both screenrecording expert software and questionnaire to investigate samples. On the other hand,the testees must complete the seeking tasks in the experiment and fill in the tables forthinking style and general self-efficacy. After collecting the data, statistical analysis isconducted.The results find: the users whose general sense of self-efficacy is higher thanthe average value (2.56points) account62.8%of the total number. Hence, theoverall level of the general self-efficacy of information user group is relatively good. Their think styles tend to be legislation, enforcement, judgment, hierarchy,extroversion and radicalism types. In the information seeking process, users preferto utilize common search engines for seeking. Moreover, the search word changingtimes is significantly and positively correlated with introversive and judging thinkingstyles. There is also a significant positive correlation between correct results,accuracy and judging thinking style. The number of applied database/search enginesis significantly and positively correlated with conservative thinking style. The resultaccuracy of information seeking behavior is significantly and positively correlatedwith the sense of self-efficacy. However, there is a negative correlation between thenumber of opened websites and local thinking style.Therefore, system developers can start from users’ psychological perspectivesto improve the system performance and increase the accessibility of the system. Inthe meantime, in the information quality education, trainers can enhance cultivationon seeking skills of information users, focus on the formation of users’ thinkingstyles and guide properly on their seeking psychology. On the other hand, users shallalso attach importance to consciously cultivate their sense of self-efficacy, andcommunicate with other users more so as to draw the successful experience fromother seekers. In this way, the information seeking efficiency, the accuracy and therecall ratio of seeking results can be improved.