An Empirical Study On MTI Students' Competence Of Information Searching Through Internet

The main purpose of the thesis is to explore the overall performance of MTI students' CISI and the characteristics of their information searching behavior.Presently,researches on CISI is very limited in the field of translation studies both at home and abroad.Therefore,by quantitative and qualitative analysis of data of 22 MTI students collected from screen recording and post questionnaire,this research is intended to answer the following three questions:(1)how to assess MTI students'CISI?(2)What is the overall performance of students' CISI?(3)What are the characteristics of MTI students' information searching behavior,affecting factors and basic searching modes?Based on Pinto et al.'s(2010)InfoliTrans and Ding Ren et al.'s(2013)WSTS,an information searching test with 10 searching tasks is developed to assess MTI students CISI.Results of content reliability show that these searching tasks are appropriate for testing MTI students CISI.The participants' overall performance are assessed both from searching efficiency and searching effectiveness and seven levels of standard is developed according to information literacy standards set up by Association of College and Research Library(2001).It is found that 22.73%is in level one(deficient);50%of them is in primary level;22.73%of them is in middle level,and only 4.55%of them is in advanced level.In addition,it is found that female participants scored higher than male;second year participants scored higher than first year participants.Therefore,it can be concluded that MTI students' CTIS is still at a rather primary level.Based on problem solving theory,MTI students' information searching behavior has been divided into three stages:pre-searching stage,searching stage and post-searching stage.As a whole,the participants' information searching behavior is quite simple.As far as searching tool is concerned,it is found that the variety of searching tools used is very limited.In terms of searching approaches,most of them use search engines and the number of direct address search is very limited.As for search query,it is found that the construction of query is very simple and most of their queries are simple.The process of TIS is mainly influenced by the following four factors:task factor,subjective factor,system factor and environmental factor.Based on the analysis of characteristics of their information searching behavior and previous studies in information science,six basic modes of information searching behavior are generalized:flow searching mode,splitting searching mode,subsequent verification mode,post verification mode,widespread searching mode and retrospective searching mode.Through the assessment of MTI students' CISI and analysis of characteristics of their information searching behavior,it is found that MTI students think little of information needs analysis,lack information searching knowledge/skills and experience,and perform poorly in information selection,synthesizing and management.So considerable attention should be paid to cultivating MTI students'information analyzing,information searching skills,critical thinking,and information synthesizing and information management.Besides,the thesis is also a reference for relevant future study with large sample.