Introduction to frameworks and paradigms?

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INFO 310

• Introduction to frameworks and paradigms?

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Frameworks

• Traditional/ Physical
• Social/ Psychological
• User oriented
• Problem oriented
• Cognitive viewpoint
• Sensemaking
• Social constructionism

Human Information Behavior
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Frameworks and paradigms

• System or physical paradigm
• Social/ psychological view
• user oriented paradigm
• Cognitive view
• Sensemaking
• Social constructionism

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The system or physical paradigm

• Objective view of information
• Users seen as mechanistic and passive
• User behavior predicted according to general
  variables - age, income
• Atomistic - focus on users interaction with
  system point of contact only
• focus on external behaviors contact with system
  is indication of need and behavior
• individuality regarded as chaotic
• quantitative

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Objective Information

• information has constant meaning
• a commodity or thing.
• can be transported
• reflects an absolute correspondence with reality
• It will convey the same meaning to all users.

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Mechanistic Passive Users

• Users are regarded as information processing
  systems
• Being informed or benefiting from information is
  assumed to result directly from document delivery
  with no intervening user behaviour

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Transituationality

• Users with similar characteristics in similar
  situations will react in similar ways, use
  information similarly and make similar decisions.
  
• The information behavior of users is described in
  ways that apply across situations.

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Atomistic View of Experience

• The focus is on user behaviour at the point of
  intersection with the information system
• The moment of contact and exchange

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External Behavior

• Very concrete
• Contact with a system is the basic indicator of
  information need
• Focus on what can be observed as overt behaviour

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Chaotic Individuality

• Focus on individual information behavior will
  cause too much variation
• Systems cannot accommodate individual
  interpretation
• Individuality means chaos and prevents systematic
  research

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Sociological and psychological approaches

• Sociological approach to information behavior
  60s...
• views the individual user of information systems
  as part of a complex of other systems all of
  which affect the persons information behavior

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Sociological and psychological approaches

• factors outside the information system ought to
  be studied if we are to interpret information
  behavior accurately
• the persons social situation
• the individuals problems
• the use to which the information will be put

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Sociological and psychological approaches

• Psychological approach
• reinforces the sociological perspectives
• takes account of the users internal state as it
  interacts with the external factors identified by
  the sociological approach

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User oriented paradigm

• subjective information
• constructivist active user
• situationality
• wholistic views of experience
• internal cognitions
• systematic individuality
• qualitative research

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Subjective information

• Information does not transmit constant meaning
• Information users interpret information and
  create sense or meaning in accordance with their
  unique model or image of the world

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Constructivist Active Users

• The user constructs need out of situations and is
  actively involved in information transfer
• The user undertakes activities that will induce
  sensemaking
• The user is actively involved from the time the
  information problem arises to the point of
  problem resolution

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Situationality

• An individuals responsiveness to information is
  governed by a range of variables that are unique
  to the individual and to the information problem
  that the individual is engaging
• Individuals operate from different centres at
  different times

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Wholistic View of Experience

• A users behavior is studied in terms of those
  factors that lead to an encounter with an
  information system and the consequences of such
  an encounter
• A broader view of information behaviour from the
  time need arises to when it no longer exists

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Internal Cognitions

• Acknowledges the premise that what is going on
  inside a persons mind (the individuals model of
  the world) will shape the way information is
  interpreted and used
• Interested in what people think as well as what
  they do when they engage in information behavior

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Systematic Individuality

• The complexity of individuality can be addressed
  in a way that is consistent with scientific
  investigation.

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Problem orientation

• A change in perception
• away from seeing information as only about
  something
• towards seeing information as having an effect on
  something
• concentrating on problems rather than questions

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Problem dimensions

• A focus on problems
• continuum from questions to problems to
  sensemaking
• Problems
• the initial state
• the goal state
• the processes - mental physical or perceptual
  that move the user from initial state to goal
  state

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A problem orientation (Saracevic, 1988)

• no such thing as information need in the abstract
  but rather circumstances that lead to information
  behavior
• there is more to a question than the words
  expressing it
• viewing the problem behind the question rather
  than the information need is central to the
  information retrieval interaction

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A problem orientation (Saracevic, 1988)
The problem State or problem Space
Internal and cognitive aspects

• Problem
• Intent
• Internal knowledge state
• Public knowledge
• expectation

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The cognitive view(B.C. Brookes)
Ks
i ks
s
Modified knowledge structure
Knowledge structure
Information

• Any processing of information - whether
  perceptual or symbolic - is mediated by a system
  of categories or concepts, which, for the
  processing device, are a model of its world (De
  Mey)

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The cognitive view (Ingwersen)

• The world model consists of knowledge
  structures. These are determined by the
  individual and social/ collective experiences,
  education and training etc.

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Sensemaking
Questions answered, ideas formed,
resources obtained
Discontinuity Condition
Gap bridged
Situation
Uses (Helps)
Gap faced
Strategies used info values sought
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Sensemaking moment
Situation
Each moment is potentially a sensemaking moment
Circling the experience
Gap
Use (Help)
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Social Constructionism

• Essential premise
• The primary human reality is about people in
  conversation
• communication and conversation are used to
  structure and organize social reality
• focus on public and social not private and
  subjective

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Social contructionism

• Emphasizes the negotiation of meaning
• reality construction through discourse
• there is no versionless reality
• rejects monologism and replaces this with
  dialogism
• the most important things take place in
  interaction, in discursive practices between
  people not within the individual cut off from his
  or her social relationships

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Social constructionism

• Assumes that we construct versions of reality
  between ourselves
• Knowledge is something people do together rather
  than an individual possession