ACTIONS, EMOTIONS AND ACTS IN THE INFORMATION SEARCH PROCESS: A STUDY OF THE INFORMATION BEHAVIOR OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES STUDENTS AT UFRPE

Abstract

The research aimed to analyze the information behavior, from the perspective of the information search process, of undergraduate students in Biological Sciences Course at the Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco. A qualitative and quantitative study, in terms of means, it is a field research and, in terms of ends, a descriptive research. The analyzed corpus consisted of students from undergraduate courses in Biological Sciences who attended the 6th to 10th period. As methodological procedures, bibliographic survey, document analysis, interview and questionnaire were adopted. To analyze the results, the information search process model from Kuhlthau (1991), and the landmark of ACRL's information literacy (2016) were used. As a result, it is perceived that the process of seeking information from students is carried out in a thoughtless way and through the little knowledge they acquired during their training. With regard to feelings, Biological Sciences students showed low levels of feelings such as doubt and insecurity. It is considered that the students were able to use search tools, such as the well-known internet searchers, but demonstrate insecurity to develop the stages of the information search process.