A preliminary assessment of Google Scholar as a source of EAP students' research materials

Helms-Park, Rena; Radia, Pavlina; Stapleton, Paul

doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2006.10.002

Cited by 21 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…In studies, the search behavior of the users was also affected by whether a task had a clear answer or was rather open-ended (Kim, 2008). Beyond the task, there are inter-individual preferences for search strategies among users, as various attempts to assign users to different search behavior profiles show (Heinström, 2002). Similarly, differences between users and between tasks can be assumed with regard to the preferred types of websites.…”

Section: Students' Internet Search Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

How Do University Students’ Web Search Behavior, Website Characteristics, and the Interaction of Both Influence Students’ Critical Online Reasoning?

Nagel

Schäfer

Zlatkin‐Troitschanskaia

et al. 2020

Front. Educ.

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The Internet has become one of the main sources of information for university students' learning. Since anyone can disseminate content online, however, the Internet is full of irrelevant, biased, or even false information. Thus, students' ability to use online information in a critical-reflective manner is of crucial importance. In our study, we used a framework for the assessment of students' critical online reasoning (COR) to measure university students' ability to critically use information from online sources and to reason on contentious issues based on online information. In addition to analyzing students' COR by evaluating their open-ended short answers, we also investigated the students' web search behavior and the quality of the websites they visited and used during this assessment. We analyzed both the number and type of websites as well as the quality of the information these websites provide. Finally, we investigated to what extent students' web search behavior as well as the quality of the used website contents are related to higher task performance. To investigate this question, we used five computer-based performance tasks and asked 160 students from two German universities to perform a time-restricted open web search to respond to the open-ended questions presented in the tasks. The written responses were evaluated by two independent human raters. To analyze the students' browsing history, we developed a coding manual and conducted a quantitative content analysis for a subsample of 50 students. The number of visited webpages per participant per task ranged from 1 to 9. Concerning the type of website, the participants relied especially on established news sites and Wikipedia. For instance, we found that the number of visited websites and the critical discussion of sources provided on the websites correlated positively with students' scores. The identified relationships between students' web search behavior, their performance in the CORA tasks, and the qualitative website characteristics are presented and critically discussed in terms of limitations of this study and implications for further research.

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Section: Students' Internet Search Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

How Do University Students’ Web Search Behavior, Website Characteristics, and the Interaction of Both Influence Students’ Critical Online Reasoning?

Nagel

Schäfer

Zlatkin‐Troitschanskaia

et al. 2020

Front. Educ.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Whether they need only the definition of a term or a detailed discussion, for a large number of students, particularly those enrolled in undergraduate programs, the search for information begins with search engines such as Google and Google Scholar and free online encyclopedias and dictionaries like Wikipedia (Biddix, Chung, & Park, 2011;Cothran, 2011;Dadzie, 2005;Griffiths & Brophy, 2005;He et al, 2012;Helms-Park, Radia, & Stapleton, 2007;Holman, 2011;Johnson, Chen, Eng, Makary, & Fishman, 2008;Judd & Kennedy, 2011;Kim, 2011;Neal, Campbell, Williams, Liu, & Nussbaumer, 2011;O'Farrell & Bates, 2009;Suarez, 2013). Several studies indicate that university websites, including websites of university libraries, are among the most widely used sources of information, and materials contained on these websites are important support for students in their learning (Biddix et al, 2011;Holman, 2011;Jones, Johnson-Yale, Millermaier, & Pérez, 2008;Kim, 2011;Malliari, Korobili, & Zapounidou, 2011;Simões & Soares, 2010;Van Scoyoc & Cason, 2006).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Croatian university students' use and perception of electronic resources

Dukić

Strišković

2015

Library & Information Science Research

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“…Moreover, to keep the track of the students" actions in the composing process, they were required to keep a process log which asked them some questions to reflect upon and describe their actions in the planning, execution and monitoring stages of writing. Logs are well-established tools used in educational studies for generating useful data about the learners" learning process (Helms-Park, Radia, & Stapleton, 2007) and accessing the cognitive processes used by the students while writing (Stapelton, 2010). The questions used in the process log were in the form of an open-ended survey and the items were extracted and adapted from Wong (2000) and Lei (2008) questions designed for analyzing their students" actions during the writing process and also based on the researchers" own studies on the composing process.…”

Section: Instrumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Investigation into the Individual Differences Correlates of Iranian Undergraduate EFL Learners’ Writing Competence: A Mixed Methods Approach

Mallahi¹,

Amirian²,

Zareian³

et al. 2016

IJAL

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The present study adopted a mixed-methods research design and explored the role of a set of cognitive (i.e., aptitude and working memory) and motivational (i.e., self-regulatory capacity and self-efficacy beliefs) individual difference variables in the writing quality and composing behavior of 78 Iranian undergraduate EFL learners. The necessary data were collected through a series of instruments and both quantitative (e.g., multiple regression and t-tests) and qualitative (e.g., narrative construction and qualitative comparative analysis) techniques were used to analyze the data. The results of these analyses indicated that the construct of foreign language aptitude had the highest level of correlation and contributory potential to account for the writing competence of the learners. The composing process of learners with different individual characteristics was also compared and it was found that learners with high self-regulation capacity orchestrated and managed their composing behavior in more effective ways compared to their less self-regulated counterparts. Moreover, the narratives and qualitative comparative analysis provided some insights about how various individual characteristics might affect the composing behavior of the individual learners. Finally, it was suggested that consideration of individual differences in writing can reveal more subtle information about the causes of strengths and weaknesses of different learners and may enable the teachers to design and implement more effective instructions targeting their learners" individual needs.

show abstract

A preliminary assessment of Google Scholar as a source of EAP students' research materials

Cited by 21 publications

References 15 publications

How Do University Students’ Web Search Behavior, Website Characteristics, and the Interaction of Both Influence Students’ Critical Online Reasoning?

How Do University Students’ Web Search Behavior, Website Characteristics, and the Interaction of Both Influence Students’ Critical Online Reasoning?

Croatian university students' use and perception of electronic resources

An Investigation into the Individual Differences Correlates of Iranian Undergraduate EFL Learners’ Writing Competence: A Mixed Methods Approach

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