How do Students Choose Which Websites to Utilize when Conducting an Internet Search? Jennifer Newman

Motivation for this Inquiry As I continue to use technology as a tool within my curriculum more each year, the importance of being able to find valuable websites becomes crucial for my students. Students in the past have had difficulty finding websites that were reliable, understandable, and knowledgeable on the topic they were seeking. By studying how they currently make choices about websites, it was my hope to discover what could then be taught that would increase their successfulness in finding high quality websites in the future.

Predictions Students will often choose websites based on pictures and the appearance of the keyword searched. –This prediction is largely based on the fact that students often seem to find websites quickly when asked to conduct a search. Students will gravitate toward popular websites such as Wikipedia. –This is often one of the first results returned in a search and almost always appears relevant to the topic being searched.

Inquiry Design Students complete an ecosystem research report each year as part of our science and writing curriculum. While researching on the Internet, students were asked to write down the reasons they chose to utilize the websites they used.

Inquiry Design continued… Additionally, students were asked to tell why they did not choose to use websites they bypassed. After the written information was analyzed, a class discussion was held to extract more information about the choices made.

Results Students have a variety of reasons to support their choices in websites. Some methods require critical thinking, while others do not.

Reasons for Choices The most popular reason for choosing a website was that it contained important details or subtopics when scanned. 41% of students listed this as a reason for their choices. Since the students were researching ecosystems, some specifically listed that the websites they chose included information about the climate, plants, animals, and weather of their ecosystem.

Student Quotes “I chose this website because it shows the soil type, tree types, local temperature, different wildflowers, maps of the area and pictures. “I picked this website because it has all the locations, climate, animals, vegetations and health issues about the forest.” “This website gives you information on the animals, temperatures, plants and locations of the tundra.”

Reasons for Choices continued… The next three responses mentioned the most were that the websites: –Had been helpful when used in previous projects (27% of students) –Appeared interesting (20% students) –Contained a lot of information (18% of students) Student quote: –“I picked this website because it helped me on my last report and I thought it would help me again now.”

Reasons for Choices Finally, a few students mentioned that they chose websites that: –Matched the keyword of their topic (12% of students) –Had pictures (4% of students) –Was oriented towards kids (2% of students) Student quote: “I chose it because it was for kids and not junk.”

Reasons to Skip Over a Website… Many students responded that they found the first two websites they went to be useful, and therefore did not have to skip over a website.

Reasons to Skip Over a Website… 57% of students shared that during their search they were taken to an unrelated website. Student Quotes: –“I did not use a website because they were giving me the wrong information. They were showing a car.” –“Every time I tried to type in coral reef it would take me to something totally different like coral for sale and the best diving spots.”

Reasons to Skip Over a Website…. Other responses included: –The website did not have a good quantity of information (25% of students) –The website repeated information they had already located (8% of students) –They did not trust the website (4% of students) Student Quote: –“Being so new, I don’t trust it.”

Sources of Websites Visited Students examined their website addresses after making their choices. It was found that: –44% of the websites chosen were organizational sites (.org) –38% of the websites chosen were commercial sites (.com) –14% of the website chosen were educational sites (.edu) –4% of the websites chosen were network sites (.net)

Wikipedia 62% of my students chose Wikipedia as one of their two resources. As we began the class discussion, I demonstrated how easy it was to change information on Wikipedia. The students were shocked! Many chose to abandon their Wikipedia article in favor of a more reliable one.

Emergent Ideas Students use a wide variety of strategies to find information on the Internet. Some strategies are effective, while others are not. Students were largely successful in identifying websites that were relevant to their topic and that contained pertinent information for their research in the form of subtopics. –This was a surprise! I did not think that very many students would scroll through the article and notice the various subtopics. Perhaps this skill comes from learning how to read newspaper articles or magazines in previous years.

Emergent Ideas Students do not typically use maps, pictures or other website features when making choices. –I had thought the opposite would be true! My observations of students when looking at other types of text (magazines, books, etc.) is that they are very drawn to visual images. –I’m not entirely sure why this is the case. One guess would be that often the visual images that appear in a website are not related to the topic and instead are distractions and/or advertisements. Could this be teaching them to ignore non-text features initially when making decisions?

Emergent Ideas The ideas of readability and reliability need to be explicitly taught. Very few students tried to read their websites to see if it was at an appropriate reading level, and/or checked to see if the information came from a reliable source. Many admitted that if the website they chose was a book, they would have abandoned it because it was too hard. –For some reason, students are not applying their strategies for choosing a readable book to websites. Perhaps they do not view reading a website in the same light as they do books. One way to help students find readable websites is by sharing kid- friendly search engines as tools for Internet research.

Emergent Ideas Students need to be taught how to decide if a site is reliable. Specific points to discuss are how to find the author of a website, the date it was created/updated, and how to determine if the author is credible. This conversation also needs to include a discussion about the various web address endings (.com,.org,.edu etc.)

Follow-Up After the initial search, I asked my students to re-evaluate the websites they chose using a rubric. The rubric focused on readability and reliability issues. Many students chose to look for a new site, instead of using the one they had chosen previously.

Result 92% of the students chose a website that met all of the requirements stated by the rubric the second time around! This lesson can now be used to teach how to search the Internet at the beginning of each year!