Exploring Information Seeking Anxiety among Research Students in Pakistan

This study explored information seeking anxiety among 31 Pakistani university research students using the critical incident technique. Face to face interviews were conducted for data collection by visiting the participants in their departments. The results indicated that information seeking anxiety among Pakistani research students manifested in eight dimensions, namely: (a) procedural anxiety, (b) information overload, (c) resource anxiety, (d) library anxiety, (e) competence anxiety, (f) ICT anxiety, (g) language anxiety, and (h) thematic anxiety. These participants also exhibited certain avoidance behaviours, search avoidance, task avoidance, and even research avoidance, along with inferiority complex. The results provided useful insights that could be used as a guide by information professionals, especially those engaged in managing information literacy instruction. In addition, this research would make a worthwhile contribution to the existing research on information behaviour in general and information seeking anxiety in particular.