Bridging the Gap

Abstract

The conference presentation at the European Conference on Information Literacy introduces a study that examined the information-searching habits of Czech undergraduate and graduate students in STEM fields. The research include an analysis of reported help-seeking behaviors at the point where students started writing their required theses. The main objective of this study was to gather initial data on how students’ information behaviors influenced their decision-making processes when seeking the academic help in 2020, during the COVID crisis. The results indicated that students’ information seeking practices directly influenced their help-seeking behaviors. Students accustomed to using high-quality information sources were more likely to seek formal help and less likely to rely on informal peer support. These results indicated that systematically developing the habit of using reliable information sources likely contributes to more effective help-seeking strategies for Czech undergraduate and graduate students.