Impact of personality traits on information needs and seeking behavior of LIS students in Pakistan

Date19 August 2019
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/IDD-09-2018-0046
Published date19 August 2019
Pages125-134
AuthorShamshad Ahmed,Farhat Rehman,Arslan Sheikh
Subject MatterLibrary & information science,Library & information services,Lending,Document delivery,Collection building & management,Stock revision,Consortia
Impact of personality traits on information
needs and seeking behavior of LIS students
in Pakistan
Shamshad Ahmed
Department of Library and Information Sciences, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Pakistan
Farhat Rehman
Department of Library and Information Science, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, Pakistan, and
Arslan Sheikh
Department of Library Information Services, COMSATS University Islamabad, Islamabad, Pakistan
Abstract
Purpose This paper aims to identify the personality traits (agreeableness, openness to experience, extraversion, conscientiousness and
neuroticism) of library and information science (LIS) students in Pakistan. The difference among the personality traits of LIS students toward their
information needs and seeking behavior is also analyzed.
Design/methodology/approach Two instruments, namely, BFI scale and a self-structured instrument were used to collect the data. Kruskal
Wallis test was applied to nd out differences among the personality traits of LIS students toward their informa tion needs and seeking behavior.
Findings Findings of the study revealed that out of 320 respondents, 186 possessed openness to experience, while only 7 possessed extraversion
personality trait. Moreover, the students having extraversion personality trait were, generally, more concerned toward information needs. On the
other hand students having conscientious trait were increasingly more seekers of information. Overall, the conscientiousnes s was identied as the
most suitable personality trait for LIS students. A signicant difference was also observed among all the personality traits of LIS students.
Practical implications The ndings of this study will help in the identication of LIS individuals personality. The library managers can use these
personality traits for the selection of suitable library professionals for their libraries.
Originality/value This study can be valuable for the induction of new library professionals and also help managers in assigning the duties based
on these personality traits.
Keywords Pakistan, Personality traits, BFI scale, Information needs and seeking behaviour, LIS students, Personality impact
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
People need information when they nd a gap between their
existing knowledge and the confronting vague situations.
Information need issubjective and transpires in the mind of the
information seekers.Thus, understanding of information needs
and information sources is important for comprehension and
devising meanings. Both information needs and seeking are
interdependent. According to Boadi and Letsolo(2004), users
link information seeking with information needs. Similarly,
Solomon (2002) referred information seeking as a rational
process in which the need of informationprompts the person to
search for information. Kingrey (2005) described that
information seeking involves divergent things in divergent
contexts for searching, retrieving, comprehension and practice
of meaningful material. Agarwal (2011) stated that traditional
sources i.e. books, magazines, persons and the contemporary
sources, such as e-libraries and online search engines are
available for information. Information seekers use all the
existing approaches to attainanswers of particular queries from
the available e-resources, online data and other information
sources including direct, indirect,active and passive sources to
ll the gap of needed information for their inuential existence
(Wilson, 1999).
Various studies substantiated that the area of information
need and seeking behavior has been explored extensively in all
disciplines including library and information science (Burford
and Park, 2014;Catalano, 2013;Savolainen, 2017). Sirikul
et al. (2016) described that information seeking depends on the
individuals personality and situational requirements that are
determined by the access to informationand the validity of the
information sources. Psychological parameters decide that
human behavior is linked with personality, so personality traits
are directly concerned with information seeking behavior
(Miller and Jablin, 1991). Researchers are of the view that
study behavior of the learners is affected either directly or
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/2398-6247.htm
Information Discovery and Delivery
47/3 (2019) 125134
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 2398-6247]
[DOI 10.1108/IDD-09-2018-0046]
Received 26 September 2018
Revised 31 October 2018
Accepted 4 February 2019
125

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