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Parsing through paradigms: uncertainty and decision-making in human information behavior.
- Source :
-
Journal of Documentation . 2024, Vol. 80 Issue 1, p39-53. 15p. - Publication Year :
- 2024
-
Abstract
- Purpose: This study demonstrates how individual paradigms implicate the questions asked, methods used and results drawn in association with a common object of study in human information behavior (HIB) research – the relationship between uncertainty and decision-making. Design/methodology/approach: The author uses textual case studies to examine uncertainty and decision-making through the framework of four paradigms used in HIB research: positivism, cognitivism, collectivism and constructionism and suggests deconstructionism as a paradigm which raises new questions around this topic. Findings: Positivistic approaches to uncertainty are often systems oriented; cognitive approaches are often user-oriented; collectivist approaches are intersubjective; and constructionist approaches blend a subjective and intersubjective research orientation. Deconstructionism raises new questions around ethics and responsibility in relation to decision-making, and the author therefore situates it as a new paradigmatic approach for this topic in HIB research. Originality/value: Despite the presence of research aimed at recognizing and defining paradigms in HIB research, a comparative micro-examination of how individual paradigms implicate a specific research topic has yet to be conducted. Each paradigm uniquely shapes the ways in which uncertainty and decision-making are characterized, but the four central ones examined here have thus far left out questions of ethics and responsibility as being core elements of decision-making as tied to uncertainty. Therefore, this paper introduces deconstructionism as a paradigm new to HIB uncertainty research, arguing that it provides an important and novel complication of existent research questions and approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00220418
- Volume :
- 80
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Journal of Documentation
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 174407394
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-02-2023-0027