Abstract:
Information seeking behaviour is a set of actions expressing information needs, searching,
evaluating, selecting, and utilization of information. The study aimed to develop and validate
a tool to measure the information seeking behaviour of medical undergraduates in Sri Lanka.
Final and penultimate year students in medical faculties in universities of Kelaniya,
Peradeniya and Colombo, and Eastern University in Sri Lanka were invited for the study. The
elements of information seeking behaviour were defined by thematically analyzing the
content of focus group nine discussions with medical undergraduates. The scale was
developed based on the Integrated Behavioural Model. The preliminary scale with 60 items
was developed and pretested. The responses of a field test with the participation of 436
medical undergraduates were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and
psychometric analysis. The tool was refined to include 40 items and the revised version was
administered to 645 of medical undergraduates. The sub-components of the 40-item tool
partially matched with the theoretical framework and the reliabilities of overall and sub components demonstrated high to moderate reliabilities. The tool can be used to evaluate
the information seeking behaviour of medical undergraduates effectively
