Sojourners’ information seeking through interpersonal sources for cultural adaptation

The need for information during adaption process among sojourners, such as international students, may potentially require them to engage with multiple sources of information, including impersonal (e.g. internet, brochures) and interpersonal source (e.g. friends) like other information seekers. In addition to acquiring information from the internet or brochures, sojourners may have to interact with interpersonal sources to obtain information that suit their needs more than regular information seekers or local people due to specific challenges, such as language barriers, etc. This work explores how international students, in Taiwan strategically use interpersonal information sources for adaptation. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 23 international students and found that the information seeking behaviors involved deliberate processes of decision making depending on participants’ purposes, correspondent information sources, and attributes the sources hold, such as experience, relational closeness, etc. The results shed light on the future design of CSCW systems for supporting information seeking among sojourners.