The Web as Information Source: a Qualitative Study on the Impact of Information Literacy Courses

Author(s):

Chiara Ravagni

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

12. LISnet - Library and Information Science Network

Format:

Paper

Session Information

12 SES 04, NW 12, Session 4

Paper Session was also Business Meeting, Business Meeting now in SES 05

Time:

2009-09-28

16:00-17:30

Room:

NIG, HS 3E

Chair:

Elfriede Tajalli

Contribution

The use of the Web by students has increased more and more and it has become the most recurring way to find quick information for educational purposes. This research focuses on the impact of information literacy lessons (4 hours) on first and second year university students in Education at the University of Bolzano, Italy. The students are either native German-speakers or native Italian-speakers, and the research focuses, in an European perspective, on the differences in their Internet-research approaches as well. The first phase consists in interviews and test (the logs of the internet sessions are recorded by a software) to find out the perception of reliability of the Internet information and the way to find it by the students. The second phase is the course in itself, which focuses on Boolean operators, information retrieval theories and exercises, and evaluation of web pages. After the course the students are interviewed and tested again, to check if their approach to internet research has changed and in which way.

Method

Qualitative methods. Instruments: written interviews, Internet logs

Expected Outcomes

The results show the impact of the course and the effects on the student’s approach to Internet search. The implications of this study could be useful for shaping a teaching model for facilitating and supporting the students in using search engines and evaluating the information they find in internet.

References

Bar-Ilan, J. (2004). The use of web search engines in information science research. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST), 38, 231-288. Bunz, U. K. (2007). Perceived versus actual computer-email-web fluency. Computers in Human Behavior, 23 (5), 2321-2344 Bunz, U. K., & Sypher, H. E. (2001). The computer-email-web (CEW) fluency scale--development and validation Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Communication Association (87th, Atlanta, GA, November 1-4, 2001) http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/19/69/c1.pdf (last access: 11.02.2009) Erdelez, S. (2002). Students rely on the web for hard-to-find information. Educause Quarterly, 25(1), 62-63. Erdelez, S. (2000). Towards understanding information encountering on the web. Proceedings of the ASIS Annual Meeting, 37 Feldman, S. (2000). Meaning-based search tools: Find what I mean, not what I say. Online, 24(3), 49-50,52-56. Ford, N., Wilson, T. D., Foster, A., Ellis, D., & Spink, A. (2002). Information seeking and mediated searching. part 4. cognitive styles in information seeking. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53(9), 728-735. Kuhlthau, C. C. (1991). Inside the search process: Information seeking from the user's perspective. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42(5), 361-371. Kuhlthau, C. C. (1993). A principle of uncertainty for information seeking. Journal of Documentation, 49(4), 339-355. Lazinger, S. S., Bar-Ilan, J., & Peritz, B. C. (1997). Internet use by faculty members in various disciplines: A comparative case study. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 48(6), 508-518. Liaw, S. (2004). The theory of planned behaviour applied to search engines as a learning tool. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 20(4), 283-291. Spink, A., Wilson, T. D., Ford, N., Foster, A., & Ellis, D. (2002). Information seeking and mediated searching study. part 3. successive searching. Journal of the American Society for Information Science Wilson, T. D., Ford, N. J., Ellis, D., Foster, A. E., & Spink, A. (2002). Information seeking and mediated searching. part 2. uncertainty and its correlates. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53(9), 704-715.

Author Information

Chiara Ravagni

University of Bolzano - Bozen

Faculty of Education

Bressanone

104

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