Chat Room: They Can't Always Find What They Want

Understanding precisely how young people search for online information is both easy and frustrating. It's a snap because we can easily observe kids sitting down at a computer, going straight to Google, typing in one or two key words, and selecting a few Web pages from a huge list of hits. It's frustrating because of the many questions their searches raise in our minds. Why, for instance, do most students see one search engine as the answer to all of their information needs? How do children choose their search terms? What will it take for kids to develop more efficient information-hunting skills?

A new book called Youth Information-Seeking Behavior: Theories, Models, and Issues (Scarecrow, 2004) offers some intriguing insights. Edited by Mary K. Chelton and Colleen Cool of Queens College in Flushing, NY, the collection of 13 research studies examines how young people (elementary-school students through high schoolers) find—or fail to find—relevant information.

One of the most interesting studies was conducted by Andrew Large, a professor of library and information studies at McGill University in Montreal. Large tracked how students in grades one to six searched for online information. He discovered that they used (and stuck to) a trial-and-error method—no matter how inefficient it was.

Young students, in grades three and under, tend to browse search engines like Yahoo!, in which they need only to click on preselected topics rather than enter their own search terms. By sixth grade, most students are choosing their own key words, but they rarely take advantage of any of the search engine's advanced features, such as phrase searching or limiting their search by date, multimedia format, or domain, such as .edu and .gov. Instead, they simply click on one of the search engine's topics, or enter a search word, go to the hits list, and click on one page after another, until they've found what they're looking for.

Large also noticed that boys and girls, although they answer the questions posed to them equally well, go about their searches very differently. Girls tend to work cooperatively in groups, discussing the information they've found. Boys, on the other hand, are competitive, snatching control of the mouse and keyboard from other members of their group, and seldom discussing the information that they've found. Boys also spend less time at each site than girls do, growing impatient quickly, clicking the "Back" button, and moving on to the next site.

In her postscript to the book, Chelton writes that today "young people do not learn how to use, nor do they value information resources other than the Internet." Unfortunately, they're not being consistently trained in how to use the Internet effectively, either, she says.

I asked Chelton to elaborate on the research studies. Because assignments are imposed on kids, it's natural that they're going to cut corners and follow the path of least resistance, she says. And that means that Chelton's not surprised by a study that shows that the majority of kids plagiarize lots of material from the Web. Students perceive school librarians as part of an educational process—and most kids don't even get graded on what the librarian teaches them.

One way of getting kids to take librarians more seriously is to work to make information literacy a formal part of the curriculum. Then students' assignments would be graded, in part, on how well they use what the librarian has taught them. But this will only happen when there's more collaboration between school librarians, teachers, and administrators.

Chelton and Cool hope that their new book will encourage librarians, college students, and educators to conduct their own research. But for now, if librarians want to be seen as leaders, they need to share the findings of studies like these with teachers and administrators. They need to convince their colleagues that teaching information-literacy skills is a must—beginning with the first day of kindergarten.

This is my final Chat Room column. I'll soon be starting a new job, as head of the New York Public Library's Early Childhood Resource and Information Center. It's been great sharing ideas with you these past five years. If you want to continue the conversation, please e-mail me at wminkel@earthlink.net.