Modelling users’ perceptions of video information seeking, learning through added value and use of curated digital collections

Information seeking research has provided models of users in the search for information across many different contexts and situations. Digital content curation has emerged as a means for managing information and facilitating user learning by adding ‘value’ to digital content in different ways, enhancing the user experience. Using digital video and K–12 education as the context, this study examined factors representing video information seeking, user learning and use of curated video collections both individually and together as user-centred constructs. Two hundred and fifty-two K–12 teachers provided perceptions of their own information seeking processes and for different qualities of curated content and collections within the context of searching digital video for applied purposes. Results extracted underlying factors of these concepts and demonstrated significant relationships between them. Findings enabled the expansion of a model to incorporate both users’ perceptions of information seeking together with user-centred constructs of learning through added value content and use of curated digital collections. Practical implications of the study help establish baselines for future studies for formulating, incorporating and emphasising added value and video curation qualities based on users’ information seeking within the process.