Information Horizons of College Students: Source Preferences and Source Referrals in Academic Contexts

摘要

An information horizon (IH) is a mental map whereindividuals position various sources according to theirpreferences in specific contexts. IH not only highlights theroles of contexts, situations, and social networks inindividuals’ information behavior, but also emphasizes theimportance of examining the relationships among sourcesused by individuals. This study investigates undergraduatestudents’ source use preferences in academic contexts—course-related, program-related, and coursework-relatedmoral-support situations. The study also investigates thereferral networks among sources used by students.Interviews were conducted with twenty undergraduatestudents. Each participant was also asked to draw their IHmaps. Based on existent IH literature, the study usedinnovative methods to analyze and present the data. Resultsshow that students had different source preferences indifferent situations in academic contexts. While peers wereconsulted across all situations, most of the other sourceswere typically consulted only in certain situations. As tosource referrals, interpersonal sources (e.g., peers) weremore likely to direct students to other sources than toreceive referrals from other sources, and experts tended todirect students to a wide range of sources, especially toofficial sources. The findings suggest that universitiesshould facilitate students’ use of both official sources andexperts as academic sources.