Information Needs and Information Behavior
Po-Ying Wu
Graduated Student, Graduate Institute of Library and Information Studies, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
E-mail: aic11503@gmail.com
Ming-Hsin Chiu
Associate Professor, Graduate Institute of Library and Information Studies, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
E-mail: phoebechiu@ntnu.edu.tw
Keywords: Information Behavior; Information Needs; Road Running; Serious Leisure
【Abstract】
Road running is now the leisure exercise that people often do and it is a type of serious leisure. It is noteworthy that the female road running population is gradually growing, but studies on leisure information behavior are scarce. This study applies qualitative research method and uses semi‐structured interview for data collection to explore the possible information needs, information seeking channel, the challenges and solutions when seeking information, and information use behavior of female road runners. The result shows that the information needs is mainly to acquire running knowledge, and internet is the major channel to seek information. When they encounter difficulties during information seeking, they would read a lot or consult another source to solve the problems. Their information use behavior is mainly physical practice, and they would evaluate the correctness of information and select the required information by the authoritativeness of information. Other strategies of evaluating information quality include multiple source validation, and check against self’s experience. Female road runners shows the quality of serious leisure, and their information behavior is primarily to acquire running knowledge, skill and expericence. Finally, this study has practical recommendations on female road runners, information provider, and promoting female road running. It is also suggested that the future study may aim at other specific road runner group as the study subject or use quantitative method for further research.
DOI: 10.6245/JLIS.201804_44(1).0005
【Long Abstract】
Introduction
Road running is a leisure exercise that people often do and is a type of serious leisure that is substantial and fulfilling to one’s life in today’s society. It is noteworthy that the female road running population is gradually growing, but studies on leisure information behavior are scarce. This study applied qualitative research method and used semi-structured interview for data collection to explore the possible information needs, information seeking channel, the challenges and solutions when seeking information, and information use behavior of female road runners. This study aims to raise awarenss of women’s role and enthusiasm in sports, to assist women in understsnading the importnace of exercise and participatation in leisure-time physicial activities, and to establish a life-sustaining goal of exercise practice and physical fitness.
Review of Literature
The review of literature discusses two important themes, including the introduction of road running as a sport and a review of the related studies, and the concept of sports participants’ information behavior. Road running is one of the most popular and accessible atheletic activities in the world, and is increasingly gaining acceptance and popularity worldwide. Past studies on road running has been primarily focusing on investigating the motivation of runners’ maintainining their running activity and participating in the race.
Their motivation to start running and keep training can be divided into health reasons (weight control, body image, and fitness training), psychological needs (reduce stress), social support, and personal achievement.
The road runners who demonstrate motivation to participate in running would eventually become runners who take road running as serious leisure. Running is a type of casual sport. When taking running as a seious leisure, different from casual leisure, Stebbins (1982) proposes that serious leisure demonstrates six characteristics: (1) need to persevere at the activity, (2) availability of a leisure career, (3) need to put in effort to gain skill and knowledge, (4) realization of various special benefits, (5) unique ethos and social world, and (6) an attractive personal and social identity. To become an avid and enthusiastic road runner, a series of information seeking activities must be completed in order to acquire advanced knowledge on road running for satisfying the information needs. Past studies of information behavior in the context of sports and leisure activities tend to focus on information sources, and these sources include traditional and new media, coaches and trainers, conferences and workshops, and medical professionals.
Research Methods
For the puspose of sampling, criteria were established to select female road runners who were qualified as taking running as serious leisure: (1) The female road runners aged between 21 and 40 years old; (2)
constantly participated in road running activities for at least two years; (3) ran on the road at least once a week for self-training or race; and (4) must have participated at least two half-marathon races or greater distance in the past one year. The invitation to participation was disseminated on Road Running Board of PTT Bulletin Board System (https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/), one of the largest and most popular bulletin board systems in Taiwan, and the online running forum Running Biji (http://tw.running.biji.co/) to solicit female road runners who met the abovementioned criteria. A snowball sampling method was also used by asking people who had already been interviewed to point to the researchers other potential participants.
The interviews were conducted between September and October 2017, and a total of 12 female runners were interviewed. Five of them aged between 21 and 30, and the rest of seven participants aged between 31-40. Their level of education ranged from undergraduate to graduate levels. Eight of them had run for 2-5 years, three of them had run for 6-10 years, and one had run for 11 years.
Semi-structured interview was conducted and administered with each of the female road runner at her choice of time and location, to ensure she was comfortable and willing to share at all times during the interview. The interview questions were organized around the four research questions set out below:
(1) What are the female road runners’ information needs? (2) What are the female road runners’ information seeking channels? (3) What are female road runners’ information behavior and the difficulties they encounter? And (4) What are the characteristics of female road runners’ information use behavior? Prior to the interview, the researcher contacted the research participants to introduce the research objectives, methods and procedures, and to provide the research participants with interview guides and participant consent form. The participants were informed that the interview would be recorded for analysis purposes.
The interview sessions were recorded and transcribed. The field notes were organized around interview conversations, research participants’ background information, interview dates, time, and location information. Data was analyzed qualitatively with constant comparisom method. The sentences and paragraphs with specific meanings were coded, codes with similar or related meanings were later grouped into upper level categories. Relationships and hierarchy of the categories were constructed through constant comparisom and grouping.
Research Findings
The result shows that female runners’ predominant type of information needs is knowledge on road running, sports injury and prevention, race information, running equipment, practice fields, and experience sharing. Internet is the major information channel for seeking information. Female runners rely on search engines, social media sites, road runners’ online forums, bulletin board systems, and
wearable device platforms to access the information they need. They often experience difficulties during information seeking, such as inaccurate search results, information lacks depth and variety, inavailability of information, and inability to evaluate information quality. They would solve the problems through extensive reading and seeking second opinion. There are two levels of information behavior involved after information is acquired, and these are information use and information evaluation. The female runners’ information use behavior is mainly physical practice, and they would evaluate the accuracy of information and select the required information by the authoritativeness of information. Other strategies of evaluating information quality include multiple source validation, and check against self’s experience.
Female road runners shows the quality of serious leisure, and their information behavior is primarily to acquire running knowledge, skill and expericence.
Conclusion and Implications
This study is able to make two directions of practical implications. Female road runners are encouraged to acquire a broad range of sports knowledge and skills, and to join the running club and group training to establish a successful running habit. Government institutions and organizations that support athletic activities are advised to create and maintain websites that provide interactive and diversified information to female road runners. Video-based training sessions would be an effective teaching material for female runners to get familiarized with the skills and knowledge. The running clubs should establish a fair, transparent and consistent procedure and process to support information delivery and the growth of membership.
Future research directions can be derived from the findings presented in this paper. Firstly, information behavior of specific groups of road runners in distinct context may worthy of research. Road running clubs are popular in local communities and worldwide, and they are formed out of common interests of runners, by companies, or by runners’ professional associations. Members of different types of running clubs may demonstrate different purposes and characteristics of information behavior.
Therefore, future research may focus on comparing and contrasting the information behavior of members of different types of running clubs. Secondly, quantitative approach to gathering information focuses on describing phenomenon across large number research participants may be taken, and future research using quantitative inquiry may allow for modeling information behavior of female road runners for a larger scale of samples.
【Romanization of references is offered in the paper.】