From the conception of a study to the execution of the experiments the primary literature tends to play a pivotal role in virtually every phase of a research project. It follows, therefore, that learning to successfully navigate the literature should be a main outcome of the training of undergraduate and graduate research students. As the first step of our long-term goal of helping students learn to effectively use the primary literature, we conducted case studies of five organic chemistry Ph.D. students’ information-seeking behaviors. Results indicated that students spend the majority of their cognitive efforts evaluating information instead of searching for it. Paradoxically, the students with the least experience appeared to rely more on their intuition as opposed to the results from their searches; whereas, the students with the most experience used the outcomes of the searches to determine the feasibility of their ideas.<br/>

Information seeking in the “Information Age”: Case studies of organic chemistry graduate students

251st National Meeting (2016)

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