Wandering around in the darkness : Students information seeking and relevance judgements during school assignment.

The main object for this thesis is to study how students in library and information science at Högskolan i Borås search and valuate documents in the process of writing a paper. The study is based on a series of interviews with 12 students. Our methodology is also based on studies of their final product. The goal of the study was to map out how the students make their decisions during their search process. We studied the students use of search words, relevance judgements and how their need for information changed trough out the writing of their paper. Our theoretical background is based on articles that describe similar studies but in more specified areas. In our study we try to make a more general evaluation of the information seeking process. In the thesis we show how librarians could be of better use in their interaction with students and that the biggest problem for the students is that they are inconsistent. We also discuss some myths for example that more search ways results in better documents and that more references gives a better paper. We come to the conclusion that this isnt always the truth. In our findings we try to show how students in the same situation as our informants can be helped by being aware of the needs and problems that can occur during the writing of a paper and not making them themselves. We also hope that librarians can find use of our thesis as they help students in the future.Uppsatsnivå: