Information-Seeking Behavior Study

Children are more likely to look for answers to their questions online than to ask their parents, according to a survey of 15,226 people in 10 countries by Lenovo. Many parents also said they look online to help their children with homework assignments, most often in math. Globally, three-quarters of parents said their children would turn to the internet first. That was highest in India (89 percent) and China (85 percent) and lowest in Germany (54 percent).
https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/parents-no-longer-needed-for-homework-modern-generations-empowered-by-smart-devices/

Research about Student Information Seeking Behaviors; Implications for Searching Databases

The following research studies provide current insights in students’ information seeking behavior, and provide strategies for teaching effective search techniques, which can be applied to using online subscription database aggregators.

Mentzer, N., & Fosmire, M. J. (2015). Quantifying the information habits of high school students engaged in engineering design. Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER), 5(2), 22-34. http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1108&context=jpeer

Students seldom evaluate the quality of online resources. They tend to rely on commercial and persuasive websites rather than informative or technical ones. Students do not search for broad categories of relevant information. Students are more likely to use search engines than use databases.

Hughes, H. (2013). International students using online information resources to learn: Complex experience and learning needs. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 37(1), 126-146. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/55064/1/InternationalStudentsExperiences-4May2011-FINAL.pdf

International students’ information behaviors reflect eight interrelated elements: students’ personal characteristics; the information-learning environment; interactions with online resources; students’ information literacy level; help-seeking habits; affective aspects; reflective responses; and cultural-linguistic dimensions. In using online resources, international students displayed developed information skills and less-developed critical information use.

Kim, S. U. (2015). Enablers and inhibitors to English language learners' research process in a high school setting. School Library Research, 18. http://www.ala.org.csulb.idm.oclc.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/aaslpubsandjournals/slr/vol18/SLR_EnablersandInhibitors_V18.pdf

The researcher tracked high school ELL students’ research processes, and found that by the end of their efforts, students had difficulty finding specific information, evaluating information, and summarizing it. In the middle of their efforts, they felt more competent; they did not have the big picture at that point. Students sometimes searched in their first language, especially if they did not know the English vocabulary, but they did not include the resulting resources in their final product. Students wished for guidance from someone who knew the assignment and the topic, and who could help them find background information, topical vocabulary, and specific information. They also wanted more time to research, and sample products.  Teaching ELL students how to seek and use information helps them learning English and the subject matter.  These students should also be supported in their practice of searching first in their first language, and their resources should be considered for their final project.

Yeh, Y., Hsu, Y., Chuang, F., & Hwang, F. (2014). Middle-school students' online information problem solving behaviors on the information retrieval interface. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 30(2), 245-260. https://ajet.org.au/index.php/AJET/article/view/478/940

Student self-monitoring and metacognition practices facilitate searching strategies. Otherwise, students can feel overwhelmed by the amount of online information, or settle for general information, or not organize the found information. Boolean use is not so important now because of search engine features, but the key words need to be relevant and specific enough to get good hits.

Knox, C. H., Anderson-Inman, L., Terrazas-Arellanes, F., Walden, E. D., & Hildreth, B. (2015). The SOAR Strategies for Online Academic Research: Helping Middle School Students. Handbook of Research on Technology Tools for Real-World Skill Development, 68-103.

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8dnHCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA68&dq=search+strategies+high+school+students&ots=9NcaA7IZsD&sig=0Y5LIdnKJpJ0lJFcMyMnu18pPvI#v=onepage&q=search%20strategies%20high%20school%20students&f=false

Students need instruction and practice in constructing research questions, searching effectively, assessing resource credibility, and connecting resources. Middle school students need step-by-step strategies, which lead them to see themselves as efficient learners. Teachers also need to tell students that reading online differs from print reading; the former is more goal-oriented and focused on the specific task context. Online articles tend to be shorter; web features can be distracting.   The University of Oregon Center for Advanced Technology in Education created SOAR Toolkit (http://ssoar.uoregon.edu/) to help middle schools search for and use online information.

Strategy 1: use digital notebook to brainstorm questions and keywords.

Strategy 2: refine search terms based on results (get better match).

Strategy 3: examine URL for authors and institutions, domains, relevance.

Reading and recording information: reflect on understanding and ask self questions; record notes, create reference list, combine notes into an outline.

O'Sullivan, M. K., & Dallas, K. B. (2017). A collaborative approach to implementing 21st century skills in a high school senior research class. Education Libraries, 33(1), 3-9.

http://educationlibraries.mcgill.ca/article/view/284/281

The authors outline search strategy steps: select a topic (give them time), concept map, formulate a research question, distinguish between keywords and subject headings, develop a search strategy, write the research paper, assess the process and product.

Cook, D. B., & Klipfel, K. M. (2015). How do our students learn? An outline of a cognitive psychological model for information literacy instruction. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 55(1), 34-41. https://journals.ala.org/index.php/rusq/article/view/5797/7301

     Researchers suggested five principles for structuring information literacy instruction: create a problem context, limit the amount of content, build a narrative, focus on deep structure, and practice deep structure through active learning. It is not necessary to dwell on learning styles in such instruction, but rather find commonalities among student learning approaches.

Bell, S. S. (2015). Librarian's guide to online searching: Cultivating database skills for research and instruction. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. http://pcc-lib.pbworks.com/f/Bell10.pdf

This guides gives practical strategies for asking good questions and choosing a database.

So what are the take-aways from these research studies? Most important is the need for explicit instruction in how to develop a search strategy based on identifying the information task, formulating good research questions, brainstorming keywords and concepts, and getting background information (and associated specialized vocabulary). Guidance in locating relevant information should focus on specific, relevant databases and other vetted sources. Students need to understand and use criteria for evaluating resources, and should be encouraged to compare resources about the same topics. Students should also be taught metacognitive skills such as self-reflection, asking themselves questions about the sources as they examine them, and monitoring their efforts and results. 

Information behaviors research book

The  4th edition of the book Looking for Inforrmation presents a comprehensive review of more than a century of research on information behavior (IB) and related topics, with over 1,500 citations to relevant works, together with complete reference list, glossary of key terms, and subject and author indexes.  In addition to now being co-authored, this new text includes significant structural and content changes from earlier editions.
Case, D., & Given, L. (2016). Looking for information: A survey of research on information seeking, needs, and behaviors (4th ed.). West Yorks, UK: Emerald.

High school students research skills research

To better understand how high school students apply their information literacy skills when conducting research and how these students carry out research projects, researchers asked a group of 289 high school seniors to complete an information literacy survey related to the research process. In addition, approximately ten percent of these students were randomly selected and asked to participate in an interview to provide more in-depth information about their perspectives on finding and using information. Results indicate the study participants were able to use library resources to locate and use information, that they used a variety of resources, and that they considered themselves successful library users. However, participants voiced a need for help in deciding which resources are best to use and how to identify important information from those resources. These high school seniors also wanted to learn more about how to use books for research. Although these students indicated they may need assistance when doing research, they rarely asked the school librarians for help. These findings are discussed in the context of the role of school librarians.

Kovalik, Cindy; Yutzey, Susan; and Piazza, Laura. “Information Literacy and High School Seniors: Perceptions of the Research Process.” School Library Research, 16.
http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/aaslpubsandjournals/slr/vol16/SLR_Information_Literacy_High_School_Seniors_V16.pdf

College student Information literacy study

The study presents findings from 560 interviews with undergraduates on 10 campuses
distributed across the US, as part of Project Information Literacy (PIL). Overall, the findings suggest that students use a “less is more” approach to manage and control all of the IT devices and information systems available to them while they are in the library during the final weeks of the term. Over half the sample considered their laptop their most essential IT device and most had a Web browser and, to a lesser extent, a word processing application running at the time of the interviews. Most students were using one or two Web sites at the time of the interviews, but there was little overlap among the Web sites they were using. Recommendations are made for how campus-wide stakeholders—faculty, librarians, higher education administrators, and commercial publishers—can work together to improve education for 21st century undergraduates.
Head, A., & Eisenberg, M. (2011). Project Information Literacy Research Report. Seattle, WA: University of Washington.
http://projectinfolit.org/pdfs/PIL_Fall2011_TechStudy_FullReport1.1.pdf

Information literacy needs

An ethnographic study of Illinois college students found that despite being “born digital,” today’s undergraduates struggle with researching scholarly information. Further, they do not recognize their own limitations. Students reported that Google is their most regularly used search tool, but most did not know how to build a search or how to limit search results within it.
College Libraries and Student Culture: What We Now Know.

Edited by: Lynda M. Duke and Andrew D. Asher. ALA, 2011.

http://www.erialproject.org/

Research speed surveys

Educators need faster ways to find the resources they are looking for and resource providers want better discoverability on the Internet, according to results from recent surveys.
Of the educators surveyed, more than 7 in 10 (72.6%) said they search for instructional resources on the Internet at least several times a week, with 25.8% stating they search daily. Sixty-six percent of educators said they get many “irrelevant results” and 9 in 10 said they would be more satisfied with Internet searches if search engines offered the ability to filter results by standard instructional criteria such as grade level, subject area, and media type.
Nearly half (46.4%) of educational publishers and resource providers responding to the survey said they are either “dissatisfied” or “somewhat dissatisfied” with the current online visibility of their products and more than half (57.1%) stated that their customers find it “difficult” or “somewhat difficult” to find their content and products when conducting online searches. Nearly 2 in 3 publishers (65%) agreed that they would either definitely implement or be “highly likely” to implement a new standard for tagging online educational resources if discoverability would improve.
Learning Resource Metadata Initiative. (2012). Improving online search for education.
http://www.lrmi.net/survey-results-show-need-for-more-targeted-results-when-searching-online-for-learning-resources

Report on information sources used

A new survey finds there is a richer and more nuanced ecosystem of community news and information than researchers have previously identified. Americans turn to a wide range of platforms to get local news and information, and where they turn varies depending on the subject matter and their age. The report includes an interactive graphic that explores which sources Americans use the most for 16 topics of interest.
Pew Research Center. (2011). How People Learn About Their Local Community. Washington, DC: Author.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2105/local-news-television-internet-radio-newspapers?src=prc-newsletter

Information-seeking study

This new report offers insight into the ways people search for information in the online age, and how this affects the ways they interact with public libraries and museums, both online and in person. Findings include:
* Libraries and museums are the most trusted sources of online information among adults of all ages, education levels, races, and ethnicities. Libraries and museums rank higher in trustworthiness than all other information sources including government, commercial, and private Web sites. The study shows that the public trust of museums and libraries migrates to the online environment.
* The explosive growth of information available in the “Information Age” actually whets Americans’ appetite for more information. People search for information in many places and since the use of one source leads to others, museums, public libraries, and the Internet complement each other in this information-rich environment.
* The Internet is not replacing in-person visits to libraries and museums and may actually increase onsite use of libraries and museums. There is a positive relationship between Internet use and in-person visits to museums and public libraries.

Institute of Museum and Library Services. (2008). InterConnections: A National Study of Users and Potential Users of Online Information. Washington, DC: Author.
http://www.interconnectionsreport.org