Satisficing strategies and stopping behaviour of archival researchers in information sources selection

Abstract

Looking for information in archives seem to be a challenging task for archival researchers since they deal with special collections which are quite different from those found in libraries and other repositories. Archival researchers tend to be overwhelmed when looking for information to fulfill their needs as a result of the complexity of the information seeking process in archives. Hence, understanding their information seeking activities is important in order to find out what factors influence archival researchers to stop searching for information and what influence archival researchers to satisfy with the information gathered as in guiding archivists in the provision of archival information sources and services to their clients. The main objective of this study is to investigate the satisficing strategies and stopping behaviour of archival researchers in archival institutions. Data were collected using questionnaires survey. SmartPLS 2.0 was used to analyse the quantitative data in order to explain the relationship among the study variables (information sources selection, satisficing strategies, and stopping behaviour). A total of 621 of the questionnaire were answered. The findings show that the satisficing strategies and stopping behaviour are significantly influence information sources selection of archival researchers. The cognitive ability, motivation, evaluation of information are three significant dimensions influencing satisficing strategies of archival researchers. While stopping behaviour is measured by technology distress, information distress, quality criteria and rational criteria. The result shows that technology distress, information distress and quality criteria are significant dimensions influence stopping behaviour except for the relationship between rational criteria and stopping behaviour. This study provides beneficial information regarding the satisficing strategies and stopping behaviour of archival researchers in selecting information sources to meet the information need for their research activities. This study fills up the gap in the literature and could be used as basic understanding regarding the factors influence information sources selection of archival researchers in archival institutions. Furthermore, the findings could assist and guide the archivists to design and provide better facilities, archival materials and archival systems to enhance the quality services to meet the requirement and information needs of archival researchers.