1. INTRODUCTION
Today we are living in information society. Information is the life-blood of the modern times that has profound impact on all aspects of a digital citizen. In today’s world overall development mostly depends on proper access and use of information. Without valid and up-to-date information, it is hardly possible to progress in any field of life (Bajpai, 1999). Information simply can be defined as an entity or concept or process that directs data to accomplish the journey towards knowledge and further to wisdom. This quest pervades the sole basis of human information behaviour. It encompasses an extensive array of user behaviour concerned with information activities ranging from generating information need, seeking, sharing and use of information for effective information systems design (Khoo, 2014). However, the nature of this information has undergone a massive change with the proliferation of modern Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) and their ease of use. Cloud computing, cyber bullying, blogosphere, folksonomy, social bookmarking, harvesting the web content etc. have been the common phenomenon to the information seekers today. Such a technological environment has been contributing man’s capacity to cope with the mass of information surrounded with him (Nahl, 1998). On the psychological aspect, such kind of ‘User coping skill’ (Faibisoff and Ely, 1974) often poses great difficulty for individuals to take proper decision for extracting information from the data storage or cloud. Thus it has remarkably affected the information seeking behavior of information users from diverse knowledge domain.
Law is such a knowledge intensive domain which serves as principal source of legal cognition for all and for the legal community in particular. The legal fraternity need to cope with the legal information for a multitude of background work that includes reviewing and compiling statutes, procedural rules, evidence, bill, amendment, pertinent documentation and many more. Therefore, legal information is a valuable resource for legal practitioners, especially for the law students who generally learn how to become lawyer (Oke-samuel, 2008). Law students like legal practitioners work in information rich constant flux with ongoing trends of statutes and other legal affairs for learning and legal research (Kerins, Madden and Fulton, 2004). But the ways of legal information provision has changed radically in last couple of years with the entrance of law in the so called knowledge-soup. In the same vein, library and information centers are shifting from traditional to electronic mode of operation to support computer assisted legal research. Library 2.0 principles are now creating a new paradigm into law library services. Some popular digital law library platforms such as LexisNexis, Westlaw etc. render legal information support from various legal domain either personalized or interconnected in the database. Besides these, there are so many general search engine (such as Google) and law-specific search engines (such as FindLaw) that provide legal information over the network. These tend the law students to use of various legal information sources and services in digital environment while seeking information.
Systematic investigation of different types of user group helps to identify different characteristics of users; their need (Wilson, 2000; 2006), information seeking behavior (Wilson, 2000; Prabha, 2013), information use pattern, reasons for using one or more information sources (Murugan, 2011) irrespective of various disciplines or professions. Within the field of user studies, Information seeking behavior is the highly researched area that helps to reveal the usage of a particular system or service for further improvement. As noted by Marchionini “Computer-augmented information seeking will become increasingly more pervasive and more complex” (Marchionini, 1992, p. 161), it has been now turned as an imperative to investigating the digital information seekers as a ‘behavioural evidence’ for recording perceptions and requirements of a user and to take decisions on them. Thus proper understanding of information seeking behavior as a user study is a necessity for planning, designing, and beginning the latest information services based on existing ones. It therefore motivates the present study to investigate the information seeking behaviour of law students in such digital environments.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Information seeking behaviour has been a user-centered ethos that has much analyzed in library and information science. There have been several studies that have focused on understanding the information seeking behavior of law students in digital environment.
Anyaogu (2014) reports the results of a study exploring the information need and seeking behaviour of post-graduate law students of NIALS library, Nigeria and found out that Law textbooks were the most used source used for information seeking by the students. Ogba’s study (2013) also indicated that law students use textbooks as print information source while reference books, newspapers, Periodicals etc. are the less used source by them. A recent study by Kadli and Hanchinal (2015) on information seeking behaviour of law students in two law colleges of Mumbai identified the student’s high dependency rate on books along with other online and offline legal databases. It also showed that e-mail is the most popular internet application used by the students and they always become aware about free online databases through friends, teachers, library staff, library website, library blog, brochure etc.
As Aforo and Lamptey (2012) stated that the library is the first gateway of call for every academics, law students have to depend heavily on library and information centre for fulfilling their information need. Oguntuase and Falaiye (2004) also opined that there is a positive correlation between adequacy of library materials and frequency of library visits by the user. Ukpanah and Afolabi (2011) defined law library as an assemblage of legal information in an organized manner to use of those either seeking to qualify or who have qualified as Lawyers, and those performing or administering law. Tuyo (2006) also buttressed the need of adequate collection of a law library that must be responsible to provide relevant information regarding of quality and quantity of materials in its holdings. Ossai (2009) conducted Library use patterns of law students at the University of Benin and found that law students avoid seeking any form of relationship and assistance with library staff they run into difficulty. The study also showed that Nigerian law students do not use OPAC(Online Public Access Catalogue) in accessing library resources. They were also found to be shelve-browsers. Thus instead of using OPAC to access library resources, they preferred going directly to the shelves and moving round until they find any book related to their area of research.Onwudinjo, Ogbonna and Nwadiogwa (2015) investigated the use of law library collections of undergraduate students ofFaculty of Law, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka and found that majority (75.8%) of the students thought to be favourable with the law library resources.
Yemisi and Mostert (2013) undertook a study on information seeking behavior and ICT utilization skills of undergraduate law students in Adekunle Ajasin University. Study explored that most students preferred both print and electronic sources. They also noted that internet is the only used tool, moreover ‘when it is necessary’ and the internet was mainly used through the mobile phone. Abbas, MacFarlane and Göker(2014) investigated the impact of Smartphone on information seeking behavior of law students throughout the Higher Education Institute (HEI) of UK in relation with the information delivery services using mobile technology. They also suggested library and information professional to be more pro-active for rendering information services to students through the Smartphone as a means to deliver the information product. Yemisi and Mostert (2012) observed that Law students do not fully utilize ICT resources when seeking information in the library and they also do not seem to have been exposed to the core information retrieval tools required for the law profession and are not skilled enough to use gadgets, such as computers, the internet and information databases, available in the law library. Rai (2013) in her study towards the use of electronic legal resources, examined the information seeking behaviour of the legal researcher of academic law libraries at Delhi. The study shows that most of the legal researcher (almost 97%) preferred legal databases and computer aided legal research to fulfill their information need. The major problems identified in this study that dissatisfy the researcher are: restricted access, slow connection, searches and login problems, lack of library support services etc. The study also buttresses the need for library orientation and online information search skill program as practical solution for aforesaid problems.
In another study Ossai (2011) observed that most of the law students have difficulty in locating and identifying suitable library information sources for case law, legislation and journal articles. She also suggests that law students should be encouraged to spend more time in libraries. Ogba (2013) also buttressed the need to equip Law lectures with information skills and digitized means of imparting knowledge to students- a web based learning which accepts print and digital resources simultaneously. In this regard Onwudinjo, Nwosu and Ugwu (2014) put a lot of emphasis on periodic assessment of the collection of law libraries by the regulatory authorities for the modification of collections that could best fit with the curriculum. As a practical solution Niedwieckie (2005) focused on the ‘metacognitive skills’ and control of learning by using several technological tools (i.e. learning blogs, message boards and other online tools) to help the students plan, monitor and evaluate their learning more effectively. Aldaihani (2003) also put emphasis on teaching and training the students on legal informatics and legal databases.
3. RESEARCH QUESTION
The goal of this study is to explore the pattern of information seeking behavior of law students in digital environment by addressing the following research questions:
RQ 1: What is the current status of information seeking behavior of students of law in digital environment?
RQ 2: Which factors influence law students to use the e-resources?
RQ 3: What are the challenges students faces for seeking electronic legal information?
RQ 4: What are the strategies that can be applied for the improvement of legal information sources and services?
4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This study includes survey methodology with the help of structured questionnaire comprising of dichotomous, multiple choice, rating and opinion questions. Students of Faculty of Law at University of Dhaka were used as the population in this study. At present the university offers a 4 year L.L.B. programme to obtain Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree and a 1 year L.L.M. programme to obtain Masters of Laws (L.L.M.) degree. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select the respondents from law students registered in the session 2015-16 of Faculty of Law, University of Dhaka. At first the students were divided into two strata: LLB and LLM. Then 100 students were taken randomly from each stratum to constitute a total of 200. Questionnaires were distributed to the study sample between October and December, 2015 for collecting the data. Among the distributed questionnaire, 183 were returned usable (response rate of 91.5%). Collected data were analyzed using simple descriptive statistics and SPSS version 20.0.
5. RESULTS OF THE STUDY
5.1. Respondents
Fig. 1 illustrates the distribution of respondents by gender. It shows that, out of 183 participants 55 were male and 40 were female, accounting for 52% of strata 1, and 50 were male and 38 were female from strata 2that were 48% of the study sample.
5.2. Purpose of Seeking Information
Respondents were asked to mention the reason of why they seek information. Results revealed that the highest 45.9% of the respondents’ purpose of seeking information is for the preparation for assignment, followed by 33.33% for the preparation for examination. The third highest purpose of seeking information by the respondents is for keeping up-to-date with a total of 14.21%, while 4.92% seek information for conducting legal research and only 1.64% for attending workshop or seminar (Table 1).
Table 1
Purpose for Seeking Information (N=183)
| Purpose for information seeking | N | % |
|---|---|---|
| Preparation for assignment | 84 | 45.90 |
| Preparation for examination | 61 | 33.33 |
| Keeping up-to-date | 26 | 14.21 |
| Conducting Legal research | 09 | 4.92 |
| Attending workshop or seminar | 03 | 1.64 |
| Total | 183 | 100 |
5.3. Information Sources Used for Information Seeking
To identify students’ sources of information, students were asked to mention the source which they used for seeking information. Responses as shown in Table 2 revealed that majority of the students 95(51.91%) indicated high dependence on textbooks as a source of accessing information; while 33(18.04%) use encyclopedias, 21(11.47%) use law reports, 13(14.21%) use law journals, 9(7.10%) use legal digests, 7(2.73%) use case reports, and only 5(1.64%) use theses as a source of information.
Table 2
Source of Information used by Students (N=183)
| Information source | N | % |
|---|---|---|
| Textbooks | 95 | 51.91 |
| Encyclopedia | 33 | 18.04 |
| Law reports | 21 | 11.47 |
| Law journals | 13 | 14.21 |
| Legal digest | 9 | 7.10 |
| Case report | 7 | 2.73 |
| Thesis | 5 | 1.64 |
| Total | 183 | 100 |
5.4. Frequency of Library Use
Fig. 2 shows the frequency of library use by the students of law to seek information. In this study physical library visit has taken into consideration to determine how often the law students visit library physically still in the digital age. It reflects that majority of 95(41.91%) students are 'Daily' using library; followed by 72(29.34%) students are 'weekly' using library. Besides these (13.75 %) indicate that they use library, but a small percent (6.51%) do not use library at all. However less number of 16(8.75%) students stated that they 'Monthly' use library for seeking information.
5.5. Preferred Format of Information
Students were asked to mention the preference for format of information. Table 3 indicates that the highest level of preference of information formats students mentioned was electronic format 83(45.36%), followed by printed formats (40.43%). In addition to that, only 26(14.21%) students preferred both print and electronic formats.
Table 3
Preference of Students between Print and Electronic Format (N=183)
| Format | N | % |
|---|---|---|
| Electronic | 83 | 45.36 |
| 74 | 40.43 | |
| Both print and electronic | 26 | 14.21 |
| Total | 183 | 100 |
5.6. Usage of Major E-resources
The result show that Law students use legal databases more (86) than any other e-resources for seeking information. General search engine is at the second position (41) as an e-resource used by students. Besides these also a good number of students (33) use OPAC. In addition with these two types of electronic information resources, digital library is used by 17. However, audio-visual & multimedia (3) and CD-ROM database (3) are less used e-resources by the students (Fig. 3).
5.7. Online Legal Databases Used by the Students
Table 4 shows that Chancery Law Chronicles is mostly used legal databases by the students of Law with a frequency of 21(24.41%) , followed by BdLex with frequency of 17(19.77%), NatLex with 12(13.96%) and WashLawWeb with 11(12.79%). Besides these UNODC, CommonLII, Yale Law School Library and Waterlex are used by 10.47%, 9.30%, 5.81% and 3.49% respondents respectively. E-resources and online legal databases were not available in the library as shown by their lowest scores in terms of availability. This implies that online legal databases were moderately used resources by the law students found in this study.
Table 4
Online Legal Database Used by Law Students (N=183)
| Database | N | % |
|---|---|---|
| Chancery LawChronicles | 21 | 24.41 |
| Bdlex | 17 | 19.77 |
| Natlex | 12 | 13.96 |
| WashLawweb | 11 | 12.79 |
| UNODC | 9 | 10.47 |
| CommonLII | 8 | 9.30 |
| Yale Law School Library | 5 | 5.81 |
| Waterlex | 3 | 3.49 |
| Total | 183 | 100 |
5.8. Factors Affecting the Use of E-resources
Table 5 depicts that on 5-point Likert scale highest mean score is 4.09 for the construct of “Open Access” and second highest mean score is 4.05 for the construct of “Availability of information”, followed by 3.68 for the constructs of “Ease of understanding”, 3.52 for the construct of “Convenience of use”, 3.49 for the statement of “Faster communication”, 3.36 for the construct of “Currency of information” and 2.93 for “Completeness of Coverage”. Finally, the lowest mean score is 2.51 for the construct of “Ease of use”.
Table 5
Factors Affecting e-resource Use (Valid N=183)
| Constructs | Range (Min-Max) | Mean | SD. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Faster communication | 1-5 | 3.49 | .91 |
| Currency of information | 2-5 | 3.36 | .84 |
| Availability of content | 1-5 | 4.05 | 1.09 |
| Completeness of coverage | 2-5 | 2.93 | .47 |
| Convenience of use | 2-5 | 3.52 | .71 |
| Ease of understanding | 1-5 | 3.68 | .93 |
| Open access | 2-5 | 2.51 | .39 |
| Ease of use | 1-5 | 4.09 | 1.78 |
The authors further examined the relationships between the six factors of faster communication, currency of information, availability of content, completeness of coverage, ease of use and open access. Result of correlation analysis based on Pearson r coefficients presented in Table 6 reveal that for open access, all other 5 factors (faster communication, currency of information, availability of content, completeness of coverage and ease of use) are positively correlated at the 0.01 alpha level. Availability of content is moderately associated with faster communication, currency of information and open access (r = 0.432, 0.129 and 0.615, respectively at the 0.01 alpha level). In particular, ease of use is most closely correlated with the completeness of coverage. So the results depict that users are likely to prefer open access mainly based on the factors of open access, while ease of use correlated to availability of content, completeness of coverage.
Table 6
Correlation Analysis among Factors Affecting e-resource Use (*p<0.05 ** p<0.01)
| Constructs | Faster communication | Currency of information | Availability of content | Completeness of coverage | Open access | Ease of use |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Faster communication | 0.130** | 0.091* | -0.047 | 0.729** | -0.021 | |
| Currency of information | -0.079 | 0.285** | 0.117* | 0.502* | 0.093 | |
| Availability of content | 0.432** | -0.066 | 0.129** | 0.615** | 0.298* | |
| Completeness of coverage | 0.235* | 0.093** | 0.344* | 0.372* | -0.099 | |
| Ease of use | -0.015 | -0.068 | -0.093 | 0.545** | 0.031** | |
| Open access | 0.254** | 0.472** | 0.390** | 0.267** | 0.652** |
5.9. Problems Faced in Accessing Electronic Legal Information
In electronic environment, students face problem for accessing electronic legal information. As summarized in Table 7, six problems were listed that students encounter during information seeking and use. The most common problem law students faced were Lack of currency of information (45.9%) that means they could hardly find all the information needed. Other major problem included unavailability of open access legal information sources, accounting for 22.40% of total respondents. In addition, 14.21% stated it was so time consuming to find information, 10.38% face difficulty for constructing effective searches, and 4.38% got bored for the scattering of information in many sources. However, only 2.73% mentioned about the problem of time required for learning new technologies.
Table 7
Problems Faced in Information Seeking (N=183)
| Problem | N | % |
|---|---|---|
| Lack of currency of information | 84 | 45.90 |
| Unavailability of open access information sources | 41 | 22.40 |
| Time consuming | 26 | 14.21 |
| Difficulty constructing effective searches | 19 | 10.38 |
| Scattering the information in too many sources | 8 | 4.38 |
| Time required learning new technologies | 5 | 2.73 |
| Total | 183 | 100 |
5.10. Suggestion for the Improvement of Electronic Legal Information System
The respondents were asked to provide their own views on how to overcome the problems towards the improvement of electronic legal information system. The summary of their views can be summarized as: integration of ICTs with libraries and legal information provision; updating the library collection with more law textbooks, law report, digest etc.; funding from government and other legal agencies for conducting legal research; provision of open access of online legal databases by library and government; provision of international law and statute as well as digital law library platform like LexisNexis, Westlaw etc.; training time to time for improved searching experience of law students and information service providers; and arrangement of information literacy program for the students.
6. CONCLUSION
The study aimed to gain insights on information seeking behaviour of law students in the digital environment, exploring implications of these findings to the development of electronic legal information sources and services. The four research questions were answered based on quantitative analysis of 183 questionnaire. For pursuing the research question 1, the study explored the purpose of seeking information, information source, frequency of library use, preferred format of information, usage of major e-resources and online legal database of law students. 45.9% students reported that they seek information for preparation for assignment which is the highest level of their reason of information seeking. Concerning the use of information sources, this study found that most participants (51.91%) heavily rely on textbooks. This study also reveals that 51.91% frequently use the library. An important finding of this research is that law students highly prefer the electronic information resources for seeking information. But still they also prefer print format of information. It is observed from the study that students use an extensive range of electronic information resources. General search engine is heavily used by students whereas E-journal and OPAC also used by a good number of respondents in this study. The findings reaffirmed the dominant use of online sources by law students in fulfilling information needs.
For answering the research question 2, several factors were found that influence law students in selecting electronic legal information sources. Most of the respondents agreed significantly (with a mean score of 4.09) that they use e-resource for the open access of information in the electronic environment and promptness in seeking information. The most interesting result found in this study is for open access, all other 5 factors e.g. faster communication, currency of information, availability of content, completeness of coverage and ease of use are positively correlated and the factor availability of content is moderately associated with faster communication, currency of information and open access. Moreover, ease of use is most closely associated with the completeness of coverage. For answering the research question 3, this study also reveals some challenges that encounter the students while seeking information. Lack of currency of information in many electronic sources is rated as the most rated critical problem by law students in legal information seeking. Thus it is evident from the study that law students at university of Dhaka cannot fulfill the information need properly due to Unavailability and lack of currency of information, unfamiliarity with the search strategy, lack of time and so on.
The fourth research question addresses suggestions to overcome these challenges and to improve the legal information sources and services. Libraries can play a pivotal role in this regard. Librarian should be more proactive by issuing current law literature and subscribing online journal for furthering the legal research of students. Integration of ICT into library and information centre through the mobile technology, Instant Messaging Reference service (IMRS), e-mail alert service etc. can be helpful for fulfilling the immediacy of legal information users. Development of an open access legal information system should be made available for the law students so that they can use the information effectively. In addition, various international legal databases like WestLaw, LexisNexis, Eurolex etc. should be subscribed by law libraries and government for facilitate a wide range of legal information resources. A lot of emphasis should be given on training of law students to learn and practice more about accessing the digital legal information. So to improve the information skill and meta-cognitive strategies, training programme on information literacy, online searching etc. should be arranged by libraries and other legal agencies time to time. Thus this study yield some strategies that can be adopted for satisfying the information need of the law students.
However, this study also has some limitations. First, because of the small sampling size, generalization beyond the context of the study may difficult to infer. Second, the findings of this study relate to a specific content area that may not generalize to other content areas or information seeking tasks. These limitations urge a need for further research, which may investigate the legal information seeking behavior in the whole country perspective. Future research can also be conducted on open access legal information sources to design a model legal information service based on the information seeking behavior of legal community in Bangladesh.
Although this study has some limitations, its results can be used as a baseline to compare the law student’s information seeking behaviour in different settings and different geographical, cultural, institutional contexts. Thus this study would be helpful to work as a baseline and indication for shaping the future research and for gaining insights on legal information domain to develop a legal information system.