Information Seeking Behavior of School Students in Delhi:A Comparative Study

Purpose: The study attempts to understand the information-seeking behavior of school students of Delhi. Method: It included sources for initiation resources, preferred language, the method used to search information resources, time spent on e- search, etc. The data for the study was collected from nine schools comprising of three government schools and six private schools. The sampling method in the sample selection was closed with the help of the stratified random sampling method. The SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science-version۲۴) was used to transform and analyze the data with applied statistical techniques such as Mann-Whitney U Test and Chi-Square test for proportions and content analysis. Findings: Results of the analysis revealed that printed information material is more preferred than electronic information material for both government and private school students. The students use electronic information resources more for recreational purposes than for academic purposes, however, a significant difference in the use of E-resources was observed between government and private school students. Government school students, as well as private school students, were found to prefer and use mobile phones for searching information over other electronic gadgets such as laptops, tablets, etc. however use of Laptops, Kindle and Tablets were found to be significantly higher in private school students in comparison to government school students. Conclusion: Government school students preferred Hindi as a language for information resources whereas Private school students preferred English language information sources. It was found from the study that the information-seeking behavior of Government and Private school students varied significantly.

Keywords:

Information seeking behavior , electronic resources , Government schools , Private schools , students