Is information-seeking behaviour of doctoral students changing?: a review of the literature (2010 – 2015)

The advent of the Internet and networked communications in the last 15 years has arguably considerably changed the information behaviours of doctoral students, including the discovery process. Information seeking includes initiating a search, constructing search strategies, locating and evaluating the identified sources. Current research on information-seeking behaviours is focusing on understanding how the Internet, social media and other technological and communication-based changes, including mobile technologies, have changed the way students seek information in order to understand the information behaviours of the students of tomorrow. This paper offers a review of the literature on information-seeking behaviours, with a particular focus on recent years (2010-15). It aims to determine whether notable changes in the information-seeking behaviour of doctoral students have emerged in recent years. The study shows that the information-seeking behaviours of doctoral students follow a steady trend, with some subtle changes, particularly in the (patchy) use of social media and networking sites. There appears to be more similarities than differences across disciplines in the information-seeking behaviours of doctoral students. Considerations to their information literacy skills are given to understand better the role supervisors and library staff can play to support the doctoral students population in the early stages of the research process.