Information anxiety: effects on the informational behavior of academically mobile students abroad

Abstract

The study seeks to identify whether the excess of information affects the informational behavior of undergraduate students from two Brazilian universities who are in academic mobility programs and whether it causes them any form of informational anxiety. The work is characterized as an exploratory field study with the application of a questionnaire with open and closed questions to fifteen undergraduate students who were studying abroad. The results indicate that the typical profile of the research participants consists of a young female, studying Law   in a private higher education institution, who chose Portugal to carry out academic mobility, and who seeks experiences of new cultures and personal and professional development. As for information searching, most students make use of the internet, social networking sites, in addition to consulting friends. The difficulties pointed out by them are related to the access and reliability of the sources found. Most subjects declare to feel discomfort in relation to the library, besides believing that the change of country influences the way of researching. The large volume of information available on the internet is seen as an aid to decision making but concerns them about the security and veracity of the information. The students acknowledge that this excess of information interferes with performance, memory, and concentration, as it is difficult to deal with a large amount of information having little time available to perform tasks, whether daily or academic. Many students present some behavior indicating that dealing with information causes discomfort, uncertainty, and even physical and psychological symptoms, such as stress, decreased   performance, mood swings, among others. Most of them believe that information excess is the main cause of information anxiety, however concerns about being in another country, worries about expenses, distance from family and assessments affect their behavior. It is concluded that the excess of information affected information behavior and caused effects of information anxiety in the group of respondents, and that the discomfort during searching reflected students' lack of knowledge of the most appropriate information sources of information for each area.