What Defines "Enough" Information? How Policy Workers Make Judgements and Decisions during Information Seeking: Preliminary Results from an Exploratory Study

Autor/in	Berryman, Jennifer
Titel	What Defines "Enough" Information? How Policy Workers Make Judgements and Decisions during Information Seeking: Preliminary Results from an Exploratory Study
Quelle	In: Information Research: An International Electronic Journal, 11 (2006) 4, (14 Seiten) PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1368-1613
Schlagwörter	Foreign Countries; Information Seeking; Government Employees; Public Sector; Policy Formation; State Government; Public Policy; Decision Making; Discovery Processes; Research Methodology; Semi Structured Interviews; Data Analysis; Context Effect; Problem Solving; Goal Orientation; Time Perspective; Stress Variables; Feedback (Response); Benchmarking; Scheduling; Evaluative Thinking; Data Collection; Australia + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ausland; Informationserschließung; Öffentlicher Sektor; Politische Betätigung; Bund-Länder-Beziehung; Öffentliche Ordnung; Decision-making; Entscheidungsfindung; Research method; Forschungsmethode; Auswertung; Problemlösen; Zielorientierung; Zielvorstellung; Zeitbezug; Disposition; Data capture; Datensammlung; Australien
Abstract	Introduction: Reports findings from research in progress investigating judgment and decision making during information seeking in the workplace, in particular, the assessment of enough information. Characteristics of this judgment and the role of context in shaping it are framed against theories of human judgment and decision making. Method: Thirty-three semi-structured interviews were conducted with public sector policy workers in Australia. Two interviews were carried out, the first with individual participants and the second, a joint interview with two participants. Interviews were taped and transcribed and inductive data analysis carried out. Findings: Findings discussed in this paper focus on contextual factors that frame policy workers' judgment and decision making while information seeking, factors including ill-structured problems, shifting goals, time stress and action-feedback loops. Also revealed was the importance of developing a framework, against which the judgment of enough information can be made, and the fluid and iterative nature of these judgments. Conclusion: The contextual factors reported show similarities with those identified by naturalistic decision making researchers, suggesting this new field of decision theory has much to offer researchers into information seeking in context. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Thomas D. Wilson. 9 Broomfield Road, Broomhill, Sheffield, S10 2SE, UK. Web site: http://informationr.net/ir
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01