Systematizing Web Search through a Metacognitive,systems-based, Information Structuring Model (mcsis)

With the exponential expansion of information availability on the Internet, users are locating needed information through search engines and relying on heuristics and trial-and-error to find what they need. This paper proposes a Meta-cognitive, Systems-based, Information Structuring (McSIS) model to systematize users’ information search behavior. The General Systems Theory’s (GST) prepositions, especially the concepts of systems and their hierarchical structure, serve as its framework. Factors influencing information seekers, such as the individual learning styles of Field Independence (FI) and Field Dependence (FD); Holist (H), Serialist (S), and (PF) Problem-Focused vs. Emotion-Focused (EF) problem-solving approaches, and individual or personal domain knowledge are discussed and incorporated in the model. The paper presents a walk-through example on finding information on the Web using the model, and concludes with the study’s limitations and suggestions for future research.