 Children's internet searching on complex problems: Performance and process analysesJohn Schacter, Gregory K. W. K. Chung and Aimée Dorr Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 1998, vol. 49, issue 9, 840-849 Abstract: The research reported here examined the effects of task structure on elementary school students' information seeking on the Internet. Thirty‐two 5th‐ and 6th‐grade students searched on 2 tasks (1 well‐defined and 1 ill‐defined) for information that was relevant to solving 2 problems. Information‐seeking process behaviors were analyzed by collecting computer trace data of each students search. Information‐seeking performance was measured by 2 adult raters and by students' own judgments of all documents found. Analyses of students' process behaviors illustrated that children are interactive information seekers, preferring to browse rather than plan or employ systematic analytic‐based searching strategies. Performance results indicated that children have difficulty finding relevant information on the Internet, however, children did search more effectively on the ill‐defined task than on the well‐defined one. Further, when judging their own performance, students rated their work equally on both tasks, yet adult judges found that students performed significantly worse on the well‐defined task. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Date: 1998 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jamest:v:49:y:1998:i:9:p:840-849 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article More articles in Journal of the American Society for Information Science from Association for Information Science & Technology |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.