A cognitive model of document use during a research project. Study II. Decisions at the reading and citing stages

Abstract

This article reports on the follow-up study of a two-part project designed to study the decision-making process underlying how academic researchers select documents retrieved from online databases, consult or read, and cite documents during a research project. The participants are 15 of the 25 agricultural economics users who participated in the original study of document-selection conducted in 1992. They were interviewed about subsequent decisions on documents considered relevant and selected in 1992, as well as documents cited in their written products but not in the original searches. Of particular interest in this article are the decision criteria and rules they apply to documents as they progress through the project. The first study in 1992 emphasized the selection processes and resulted in a document selection model; the 1995 study concentrates on the reading and citing decisions. The model derived from this project shows document use as a decision-making process with decisions occurring at three points or stages during a research project: selecting, reading, and citing. It is an expansion of the document selection model developed in the 1992 study, identifies more criteria, and clarifies the criteria and rules that are in use at each stage. The follow-up study not only found that all but one of the criteria identified in selection re-occur in connection with reading and citing decisions, but also identified 14 new criteria. It also found that decision rules applied in selection decisions are applied throughout the project.

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