Shahrzad Sadrpour ED Tech 523 Information Seeking A. What information is being sought?

I received a permission to attend an English class at a local community college, El Camino College, in Torrance to observe the students first research paper assignment. Students were asked to select an event or historical era in which they found particularly interesting and discuss how it remains relevant to our contemporary society; the assignment required students to site minimum of five sources in which one must be from a magazine or a book of their choice. The class was divided into two sessions. First session, the instructor presented the assignment along with the rubrics and an overview of correct use of research to avoid plagiarism. The second session, students were scheduled to meet the librarian at the campus library for a quick orientation regarding the different ways of researching and siting resources. Each student was assigned to a computer to experiment and further the research, thus I decided to select two students (one female age 17 and one male age 19), for my observation thus I would have a better understanding of the type of research method they would use for their research paper. B. How do they seek information? /C. How do they physically and intellectually access information? (note setting) Based on the instructors lecture and recommendation, both students created a list of useful book titles, authors names, and web sources; they seemed very confident and were clear on the historical era they were planning to research. All the necessary elements for the assignment were outlined and the topic was nicely brainstormed on a piece of paper before using the Internet. During the research process the librarian was never approached for further direction or information search. To my surprise, both students hardly used the library catalog search or database; instead the Google search engine was used as a primary source for their search. Searching by Keyword was ignored, yet most searches were keyed in either by subject or sentence format. If desired topic or link was not showing on the first page a new search would began. Also, Google book option was used several times to located specific information without the effort of reading through the whole chapter. They strictly focused on the electronic source while the assignment required at least one print source. I did not see any writing on the paper as the researched began. However, one of the student copied and pasted the desired content he found on the web on the word document and transferred the saved document to his USB thus he could access the information later on his personal laptop or home computer. The other student took few notes and decided to compose an email to herself with all the information and links she found during her research. She stated that emailing is the best and fastest way to

save important information since she can access her email account through her smartphone anywhere she goes. D. Impact of technology on information seeking. Using technology for schools assignment or personal research is a regular norm among the college students. The impact of using technology has helped many students to learn better by creating an opportunity to make their search easier and faster. However, based on my experience, the role of technology for information seeking purposes seems to have a different meaning to teenage college students than teachers and librarians. Unfortunately, teenage students dont understand the value of the free resource and the credibility of information, print and electronic, the library provides. Thus, they tend to use other online sources for their research purposes, for it works better as a supplement to hands-on library research. When I asked the students why they never browsed the librarys books and magazines, one response was that she could look up any information online and the sources provided on the web make the research convenient and most importantly save physical efforts. Other response was that he doesnt have enough time during the day to read any books. First, finding a book on the librarys shelf requires effort. Second, looking up information in a book requires looking through the table of contents to find the desired page, yet on the Web, a simple click locates the page immediately. The easy access and an open source on the Internet make it convenient for teenage students to locate any information they need without the effort of browsing through the librarys shelf. What recommendations can I make towards information literacy skills that need to be taught? As a future educator, I think it is crucial for teachers and librarians to better demonstrate the correct use of technology and web resources to students for the research purposes. Requiring students to use library resources and following necessary steps to seek reliable educational information should be a norm in a teachers everyday practice. Open source sites such as Google and Wikipedia are a great source for students to explore different ideas and evaluate other peoples opinion on a particular topic; however, due to low credibility of the information online, students should not use them as a main search engine or a source for their projects or research assignments. Link this analysis to an article/model/theory about information seeking behaviors and on one information literacy model. What I noticed in my observation was the lacks of knowledge and understanding of information searching process vs. information seeking process in students research method. Studying Kuhlthau model, teenage students properly follow the appropriate steps for their information search process, from initiation to closure

stage, to select their desired topic/focus to proceed with their assignment. Yet, the information seeking process is not being used properly due to inadequate teaching methods and curriculum. Based on my observation, todays teenage students are very technological savvy and know their ways around different technology tools and sites. Students prefers using the Web for finding information than the librarys catalog search and database because it requires less effort and time to find the information they need. Based on a study in 1999 on Information Searching Behavior of High School Students, researchers found that when it comes to completing homework and research assignments there are three main factors that teenage student prefer the Web source over the library source. First, they like the Web because of the diversity in formats, levels of specificity, and the ease of accessing information. Second, in their searching, students often relied on information that was displayed in a graphic form. They examined the graphics of the site to determine the relevant and quality, and they used graphics clues to help them find landmarks. Third, students explained that it takes longer to look in several books to find information about a topic, whereas all information can easily be located in one place on the Web. Conclusion It is such a shame that college students are not well aware of researching method and gather information from unreliable sources for their college level courses. Fortunately, most college students are very smart and well informed on technology tools and software. The easy access to the open source on the Internet has made students quite lazy, especially in terms of their education, If a student needs to research information for school, they simply rely on the Web sources that contains relevant site and rarely pay attention to the credibility of the information they copy. Also, most students are more attracted to sites that are user friendly, nicely designed, and contain relevant and interesting graphics. Student must learn the right way of researching and improve the level of their information literacy and the only way possible is for teachers to take this matter more seriously. Requiring more library search, provide sources that are more appealing to students and age appropriate, and assign different and interesting research projects allow students to be encouraged to do research and learn more about their topics.

Resource: Fidel, R, Davies, R. K, Douglass, M.H, Holder, K. (1999). Information searching behavior of high school students. Journal of the American Society for Information Science . Retrieved at: http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu. March 3, 2012 Kulthau, C.C. (1994). Student and the information search process. Retrieved at: http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~kuhlthau/information_search_process.htm. March 2,2012