Study: College kids are not so great at searching the Web effectively

Consumer Reports News: August 23, 2011 11:18 AM

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It turns out that the (supposedly) tech-savvy generation of current college-age kids are actually not all that good at using Google to find information, according to a series of studies known as the Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries Project. The project is being conducted by five Illinois universities in order to better understand students' research habits. Its findings are to be published by the American Library Association.

Students in the two-year study reported using Google more than any other search database. Specifically, 156 students at the five schools mentioned Google most often when asked about their research methods. Researchers found that 60 students frequently used the search engine poorly, and that when they used other search engines, they expected them to work like Google does.

In an interview with Mashable, Bucknell University anthropologist and project leader Andrew Asher said that it was not that students were inefficient at using Google, but that students were not equipped to evaluate or refine search results. For example, 27 out of 30 students who were observed while they searched the Web for information at Illinois Wesleyan University, failed to narrow search criteria, even though doing so would have enabled more relevant results.

Asher pointed out that he doesn't think this applies just to college students, but is perhaps true for a wider population as well.

Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries Project [ERIAL]
College kids aren't good at searching the Web [Mashable]

—Maggie Shader