Internet Information-Seeking Behaviour of Students at the University of Medical Sciences in Zahedan Based on Kuhlthau Model

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the information-seeking behaviour of students of General Medicine, odontology and post-graduate students of various fields of medicine who has admitted their theses in 2011-2012 based on Kuhlthau information-seeking behaviour. This study is an analytic survey. The studied group includes 210 theses admitted in the Research Committee of the University which were selected by census method. Crocker standardized questionnaire was used to assess the feelings and thoughts of the Kuhlthau six-stage information-seeking model using a five-choice Likert scale. The present study shows that the studied students pass the various stages of Kuhlthau model by slight differences in different stages of their theses. Their feelings and ideas are more or less similar to the learned pattern except that the fifth and sixth stages which are inconsistent with the model. The Chi-square test and exact Fisher test showed a significant relationship between male and female students in terms of feelings and ideas during different stages of Kuhlthau information seeking model.