THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN 7 VARIABLES AND THE USE OF UNITED-STATES GOVERNMENT TECHNICAL REPORTS BY UNITED-STATES AEROSPACE ENGINEERS AND SCIENTISTS

A study was undertaken that investigated the relationship between the use of U.S. government technical reports by U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists and seven selected sociometric variables. Data were collected by means of a self-administered mail survey which was distributed to a randomly drawn sample of AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) members. Two research questions concerning the use of conference-meeting papers, journal articles, in-house technical reports, and U.S. government technical reports were investigated. Relevance, technical quality, and accessibility were found to be more important determinants of the overall extent to which U.S. government technical reports and the three other information products were used by U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists.