| dc.description.abstract | Approximately 10% of Roman Catholic women will seriously discern a vocation to religious life during their lifetime (CARA, 2009). Spiritual discernment is often characterized by prayer and spiritual direction, but also the acquisition of knowledge and information about religious life. No study to date has sought to understand how women seek out and retrieve information about religious life, nor have assessments been conducted on the quality and relevancy of the information available. Therefore, the current study sought to answer the following research question: “what is the information-seeking behavior (ISB) of Catholic women discerning a vocation to religious life?” using Dervin’s Sense-Making Methodology. A survey was administered online, collecting demographic information, inquiring about the kinds of resources discerners used, the quality of the resources available, and the relationship between online vs. offline resources. Results yielded responses from 124 participants. Findings indicated that digital and print resources were heavily utilized for their ease of access, privacy, and ability to connect with other discerners. Participants indicated that connecting with a person face-to-face and visiting religious sisters produced a kind of knowledge and information that could not be acquired online, suggesting that their ISB was an integration of digital and print resources, and human connection. This study contributes to the literature by intersecting the disciplines of information science, religion, and Internet studies to situate religious information-seeking behavior in context using Sense-Making, and by presenting female discerners’ information needs, thereby equipping practitioners who seek to develop resources for them. Whereas previous literature on this topic has largely yielded demographic information and broad assessments of discernment, this deeper look into ISB ascertains their needs, use of existing resources, and decision-making processes. The study introduces the concept of limited Internet effectiveness in order to better understand the integration of digital versus in-person resources in spiritual religious processes. | en_US |
