A study of interpersonal information seeking: the role of topic and comment in the articulation of certainty and uncertainty of information need

Introduction. This paper presents the findings of, and discusses, the qualitative analysis of users' information seeking articulation in interpersonal interactions. The discussion is focused on the role of the uncertainty and certainty and the topic and comment in communicating the user's cognitive uncertainty and certainty in the quest for salient information seeking interaction effectiveness. Method. The study used transcripts of information seeking interaction between information user and a source person and the user's description of the event from a debriefing interview. Analysis. Qualitative analysis was carried out using the sequence of the uncertainty and certainty and the topic and comment in the user's utterances during the interaction in order to explore the use of these elements. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the sample and the distribution of responses to each question. Sex differences on key questions were analysed using the Chi-squared test. Results. The findings suggested some patterns in the employment of uncertainty and certainty and the topic and comment. Users initiated the need description with uncertainty and then provided certainty to describe the need in detail. Both topic and comment were used in every stage of information seeking interaction, based on which the source person provided information. Conclusions. The study confirmed that the user's certainty and uncertainty are important for describing the user's information need and that both topic and comment are essential to communicate the need.