Information interaction and behaviour was first recognized as an area for research in the early 1960s, and a few studies had been conducted as early as the 1930s (e.g. Akers, 1931). It has expanded greatly with the introduction of computer-based information systems – and particularly with the arrival of the web. The definition of the field is still evolving and its title has gradually changed. Nevertheless, its goal has always been to investigate the behaviour of people when they interact with information (see Chapter 2, ‘Information Behaviour and Seeking’, for a description of the main components of research in human information-seeking behaviour).

This chapter analyses the approaches that human information behaviour researchers use when they investigate information-seeking behaviour – how people look for information when they use electronic information systems. The development of these approaches followed those in other social sciences, if with some delay. While human information behaviour studies in the first two decades were guided by the same approach (materialized predominantly through large-scale questionnaires), later various approaches were used. These are not isolated from one another, but connected through several dimensions that point to their commonalities and differences.

In this chapter I explain some of these dimensions and discuss the contributions of human information behaviour studies to research and design. The dimensions I consider are philosophical stance, research setting, level of control, instruments for data collection, level of generalization, nature of data and analysis, and method of reasoning.

The philosophical stance

All researchers have a philosophical stance that guides their work, whether or from one project to another. A researcher's stance shapes the decisions about what research questions to investigate and these questions guide the study design, including the approach to be applied. Human information behaviour research has been directed by several stances and discussing all of them requires a book of its own. Here I adapt a simplistic dichotomy – that between the positivist and the non-positivist stances. The positivist stance was the first to influence human information behaviour and information retrieval research. Information retrieval evaluation investigations have been guided only by positivism – which has often been named ‘the scientific method’ – and is still the dominant stance in human information behaviour research.