Developing an empirical measure of everyday information mastering
Journal article, Peer reviewed
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Date
2019-08-19Metadata
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Original version
Heinström J, Sormunen E, Savolainen, Ek. Developing an empirical measure of everyday information mastering. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. 2019:1-13 https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/asi.24305Abstract
The aim of the study was to develop an empirical measure for everyday information mastering (EIM). EIM describes the ways that individuals, based on their beliefs, attitudes, and expectations, orient themselves to information as a resource of everyday action. The key features of EIM were identified by conceptual analysis focusing on three EIM frameworks. Four modes of EIM—Proactive, Social, Reactive, and Passive—and their 12 constituents were identified. A survey of 39 items was developed in two pilot studies to operationalize the identified modes as measurable EIM constituents. The respondents in the main study were upper secondary school students (n = 412). Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was applied to validate subscales for each EIM constituent. Seven subscales emerged: Inquiring and Scanning in the Proactive mode, Social media‐centered, and Experiential in the Social mode, and Information poor, Overwhelmed, and Blunting in the Passive mode. Two constituents, Serendipitous and Intuitive, were not supported in the EFA. The findings highlight that the core constituents of an individual's everyday information mastering can be operationalized as psychometric scales. The instrument contributes to the systematic empirical study of EIM constituents and their relationships. The study further sheds light on key modes of EIM.
Publisher
Association for Information Science and TechnologySeries
Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology;Journal
Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. © 2019 The Authors.