An Empirical Study of Children’s Source Use for Internet Searches

Yin Zhang School of Library and Information Science, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242. Email: yzhang4Qkent.edu

This poster reports on an empirical study on children’s source use for their Internet searches. A group of third- and fifth-grade students participated in this study over a 15-week period, during which the students conducted Internet searches for their schoolwork as part of their curriculum. Data were gathered using screen captures and three rounds of post-search interviews. Students in this study were allowed to use various Internet sources for their searches. Findings of this study shed light on how children come across, select, and use various Internet sources to meet their information needs for schoolwork and how such use changes over time as they gain more Internet experience.

Introduction Research on children’s information-seeking behavior in

an electronic environment has appeared over a decade. The information sources used to examine children’s information seeking behavior have included electronic encyclopedia (e.g., Marchionini, 1989), multimedia sources available on CD-ROMs (Large, Beheshti, & Breuleux, 1998), and online catalogs (e.g., Borgman, Hirsh, Walter, & Gallagher, 1995; Solomon, 1993). Research on children’s information seeking-behavior in the Internet environment started to appear in late 1990s (e.g., Bilal, 1998; Wallace & Kupperman, 1997) and has proliferated since then.

A review of the published research on children’s information-seeking in the Internet environment has shown that most previous studies were conducted in a setting that only one or two specific search engines were utilized in children’s Internet searches (e.g., Bilal, 2000, 2001, 2002) or that searches were performed with a time limit during a one-time search session (e.g., Schacter, Chung, & Dorr, 1998). In several studies that students were allowed to use the Internet in general for their searches during multiple search sessions over time (e.g., Fidel, et al., 1999; Hirsh 1999; Large, Beheshti, & Moukdad, 1999), o.dy search engine sources were reported utilized by students.

As research by Bilal (1 999) and Hirsh ( 1 999) suggested, source selection for a search is very critical for successful Internet searches especially in the Internet environment given that sources available on the Internet vary to a great extent in terms of coverage, quality, and search functions

provided. How to choose and use various Internet sources is a challenge faced by children when they try to find information from the Internet. The major research questions of this study include the following:

What Internet sources do children use for their Internet searches if they have the opportunity to choose sources for their searches? How do children choose Internet search engines and known websites for their Internet searches? What problems do children encouter when they utilize Internet sources for their searches? How does children’s use of Internet sources change over time as they gain more experience? Do children’s use of Internet sources vary by grade level, 3rd grade vs. 5th grade?

Method Subjects

The subjects of this study were two groups of students, 19 third-grade and 24 fifth-grade students, who came to an electronic classroom (the Classroom thereafter) located in a university for a 2-hour regular class session on a daily basis for seven weeks and in a come-back visit eight weeks after they left the Classroom. The class sessions involved Internet searches that were part of their curriculum.

Search Tasks and Sources The students in this study engaged in active Internet

searches for their schoolwork. Three major search sessions on various tasks over this 15-week period were selected as the major focus of this study. The students were allowed to use any Internet search engines and websites for their searches.

Data Collection A screen capture software application, Specto&

(http://www.spector.com), was used to capture all computer activities in the Classroom. The students’ Internet search activities were then selected, coded, and saved in an Access database. The data provided a list of sites that students utilized during their Internet searches for the three tasks. For this study, records regarding sources that children utilized for their Internet searches were filtered and exported for additional coding. A sample record of an Internet source included the following fields:

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Date: when searches happened; Time: the time stamp when a source was used; Grade: which group of students’ searches: third- or fifth-graders; Subject: who did the searches; Folder: the file/machine number, indicating which machine the student was working on; Activity: specific search move, either went to a search engine or just a website. How To Get There: how the student went to the source, for example, typing or choosing from history list; URL entered what address the student entered; URL intended what address the student intended to enter in the event when an incorrect source was entered; and Error: Whether the student received an error message.

To ensure coding validity and reliability, both the researcher and a research assistant coded all records. Records with inconsistent coding (17%) were reviewed and decided by the researcher.

In addition, three rounds of interviews were conducted after each of the three major search tasks for selected students from both groups. The interviews asked students why they used a particular site for a search and how they found the site in the first place. The interviews supplemented the screen capture data to provide a better understanding of chldren’s use of Internet sources for their searches.

Major Findings Whde Internet search engines appeared to be the major

sources for children’s Internet searches, children also used a notable number of non-search engine sources for their searches (44.3%). As students gained more Internet experience, they seemed to be more confident in tqmg non-search engine sources and they had better idea where to look for mformation instead of simply relying on search engines. However, overall, students still showed a lack of understanding of the hctionality of different search engines and whch source is more effective than another for a particular search task.

Results of this study show that students used various sources for their Internet searches. The number of different sources utilized per search session tended to increase as students gained more search experience over time. Overall, the fifth-grade students used a wider range of sources than the third-grade students for their searches and were less dependent on some individual popular seach engines. In addition, the fifth-grade students utilized significant more

sources per search session than the third-grade students for their Internet searches.

The children’s accounts of their Internet source use show that children come across Internet sources from multiple avenues: teachers, classmates, friends, family members, media, and their own experience.

Students encountered many problems when they accessed Internet sources €or their searches. Most errors occurred when students typed URLs directly. Most common errors in typing a URL fell in two categories: syntax errors and misspelling. The browser function related errors occurred only among the third-grade students, especially in their initial searches. It was also noted that a significant portion of access errors (27.5% overall, 31.5% for the third-grade, and 21.3% for the fifth-grade students) was from accessing a site available from a browser’s pull-down history list of URLs of previously visited sites. Many of these previously visited sites on the history list contained errors and failed in the initial try. Both Netscape and Internet Explorer browsers, however, still kept these incorrect addresses on the list. These errors could have been avoided if browsers did not record failed URLs in the history list.

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