What's the use? Measuring the frequency of studies of information outcomes

Several prominent scholars suggest that investigations of human information behavior or “information needs, seeking, and uses” rarely measure how received information is applied or its effects on the recipient, that is, its outcomes. This article explores this assertion via systematic analysis of studies published in journals between 1950 and 2012. Five time periods and four journals were sampled, including 1,391 journal articles, 915 of which were empirical studies. Based on these samples, the percentage of studies of information outcomes climbed from zero in the 1950s and 1960s, to 8% in recent research reports. The barriers to studying information outcomes and possible future research on this topic are explored.