Information Anxiety from the Undergraduate Student Perspective: A Pilot Study of Second-Semester Freshmen.

Abstract

IntroductionMany researchers in the field of library and information science in education have explored different ways that undergraduate students experience the information seeking process (Belkin, 1980; Dervin, 1999; Jiao, Onwuegbuzie, & Lichtenstein, 1996; Kuhlthau, 1991; Williamson, 2005). Most particularly, many of these researchers have endeavored to understand more about information seeking from the undergraduate student perspective, such as when searches relate to specific information needs (e.g. looking for information to write an academic paper). Of the literature available on information seeking and undergraduate students, something appears to be fairly consistent in the findings, particularly in recent research: undergraduate students experience a great deal of information anxiety when seeking information in a formal (i.e. library) setting, particularly if the process relates to an academic need (Becker, 2003; Gross & Latham, 2007; Gross & Latham, 2009; Kuhlthau, 1991; Van Kampen, 2004). Researchers in library and information science have discovered that such anxiety can be deleterious to both information-seeking and the academic performance of undergraduate students in the long run (Kuhlthau, 1991; Kwon, 2008; Kwon, Onwuegbuzie, & Alexander, 2007; Nicholas, Huntington, Jamali, Rowlands & Fieldhouse, 2009; O'Brien, & Symons, 2007).Despite scholarly awareness of the situation described above, little is known about triggers for such anxiety, or specific areas within the concept of information anxiety that are experienced most strongly by undergraduate students. Therefore, there is a need to understand more about specific elements within information anxiety that have an effect on undergraduate students so that academic librarians may be more effective in addressing these effects in working with undergraduate students, particularly in terms of information literacy instruction. This pilot study aimed to build a foundation for further study in the area of specific triggers of information anxiety from the undergraduate student perspective.Study Background and PurposeOne of the authors became interested in the role of information anxiety on student performance with information literacy tasks when teaching freshmen students in an orientation class at a four-year state university. It was observed that many students became anxious about the library orientation portion of the class, and some of the reasons they gave for such nervousness had to do with not understanding how the library and research tools work. Research into the literature on the topic revealed the Library Anxiety Scale, developed initially by Sharon Bostick in 1992 and further validated by Onwuegbuzie, Jiao, and Bostick in 2004. The Library Anxiety Scale has 43 statements about library usage and emotion that are meant to assess which areas of the library (e.g. staff, resources, tools, etc.) cause respondents the most anxiety (Onwuegbuzie et al, 2004). Based on previous adaptations of this measure by other researchers in library and information science (Jerabek et al, 2001; Kalbach, 2006; Kwon, 2008; Kwon et al, 2007; Van Kampen, 2004), it became apparent that the potential existed to adapt the measure to be more reflective of information anxiety by including items related to information technology (which students in the author's courses had explained were sources of anxiety for them when performing research tasks). The measure could then be used to study information anxiety as a whole among undergraduate students. The Information Anxiety Scale (Appendix I) contains 12 additional items reflecting the broader area of information anxiety.Literature detailing undergraduate experiences with introductory research confirms that anxiety plays a role in how students feel about the process. In a four-year national study, Project Information Literacy (2012) discovered that adjectives used frequently to describe the research process by undergraduate students included fear, angst, tired, dread, excited, anxious, annoyed, stressed, disgusted, intrigued, confused, and overwhelmed. …

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