Relationship of business students’ information-seeking anxiety with socio-academic variables in the digital environment

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the relationship of information-seeking anxiety (ISA) with socio-academic variables of business students in the digital environment. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional survey using a questionnaire was conducted. The questionnaire, composed of 47 items of Information Seeking Anxiety Scale along with certain socio-academic variables, was administered personally among business students by visiting their classrooms at the Lahore School of Economics, Pakistan. The received 283 responses were analyzed by applying descriptive and inferential statistics such as mean, standard deviation, t-test and one-way analysis of variance. Findings The results revealed that a large majority of business students were less comfortable in information seeking and experienced anxiety from mild to moderate levels. There were only a few respondents who faced either low or severe levels of ISA. In relationship testing, the students’ socio-academic variables such as program type, gender, school background, geographical background, information communication technology skills and English language competence did not appear to be the predictors of their ISA. Research limitations/implications The results of this study should carefully be used while making generalizations for all the business students in Pakistan and abroad as this research collected data from the business students of a single university in Pakistan. Practical implications These results have greater implications for the future directions of information literacy as creating awareness and building capacity for skills about the information search process will help in reducing ISA. These findings provided a pragmatic insight that can be used as a guide by information professionals, especially those engaged in information services, to develop a need-based curriculum of information literacy which would ultimately help in the alleviation of anxiety and combating its effects on students’ academic performance. Originality/value This study address specifically ISA of business students that would make a worthy contribution to the existing research on ISA as, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no such study has appeared so far.