| This study employs a user-oriented approach and combines survey and experiment techniques to explore the general information-seeking patterns and detailed decision making behaviors of a group of Chinese undergraduate students at Sichuan University, China.;The study finds that the information-seeking environment for these students is dynamic and complex. A variety of information need situations exist and a variety of information providers are consulted for any and all need situations. The information-seeking process is much more haphazard than prescribed by normative decision-making models. There is no serious or explicit effort to analyze the providers or to improve one's understanding of the ways to search, and only a few criteria strongly influence the selection of providers. The Subjective Expected Utility model and the Majority Vote model are not followed; the Lexicographic Ordering model seems to describe the selection closely.;In general, students tend to be initially overconfident regarding the existence of information and finding the information, and this overconfidence sometimes manifests itself as overestimation of their familiarity with the subject field or of the definedness of the information need. Greater familiarity and definedness usually lead to greater overconfidence. But students are generally quick to adjust their initial confidence by substantially lowering it after failure. Sufficing bias and uncertainty bias are also prevalent. When providers are not considered or considered but not used, one of these biases is generally the reason.;The results of this study suggest that there is a tremendous need for Chinese libraries to expand and improve their information services to serve their users, given such a dynamic and complex environment. This study also suggests that, to accommodate the inherent ways of human information processing and decision making, and to facilitate users' seeking and use of information, libraries in general should recognize the limitations of the traditional perception of a logical organization of information and of a planned, focused information-seeking process. Libraries should function more as information gateways, and information systems should serve more as probing and linking mechanisms. |
