Student Use of Keywords and Limiters in Web-scale Discovery Searching

Dempsey, Megan; Valenti, Alyssa

doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2016.03.002

Cited by 20 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The notable exception was found with the statement: "I can identify key words to search for information on my research question", which declined in fall 2015 semester and increased only marginally in spring 2016 term. This is consistent with previous observations that students often overrate their mastery of information literacy (Ferguson et al, 2006;Kim and Shumaker, 2015), especially in regard to selection of key words (Bloom & Deyrup, 2015;Dalal et al, 2015;Dempsey & Valenti, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Enhancing Information Literacy Using Bernard Lonergan's Generalized Empirical Method: A Three-year Case Study in a First Year Biology Course

Rose-Wiles

Glenn

Stiskal

2017

The Journal of Academic Librarianship

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IntroductionThe purpose is to illustrate how a team of 3 faculty from different disciplines sought to increase select information literacy outcomes of first year biology students using Bernard J. Lonergan's cognitional theory, the Generalized Empirical Method (GEM). The majority of students entering college have little experience in finding, retrieving, understanding, evaluating, incorporating, and citing scholarly sources in their scientific research papers. One factor may be a lack of library instruction and research experience in high school (Head, 2013;Smith et al., 2013;Douglas & Rabinowitz, 2016). Even for those with prior instruction, transitioning from high school level assignments to college level research can be a formidable challenge (Bent, 2008;Warwick et al., 2009;Varlejs et al., 2014;Loesch, 2017). In addition, few students understand the system of scholarly publishing or the structure of scientific information (Badke, 2012). They do not grasp the relationship between articles, journals, and library databases or the difference between searching a scientific database and using search engines such as Google. In her seminal paper "Desperately Seeking Citations: Uncovering faculty assumptions about the undergraduate research", Leckie (1996) describes how undergraduates have only the vaguest ideas about the research and scholarly publication process; they conceptualize research as "a fuzzy, library-based activity that is required of them to complete their coursework" (p. 202-203). A follow-up report (Rose-Wiles & Hofmann, 2013) suggests that little has changed in almost three decades, and that dependence on databases and on-line articles, rather than searching in physical journals, makes the library-based research process even more confusing for naïve undergraduate students.Science is a research-driven discipline, and therefore students should possess the requisite search skills. They have heard of the scientific method, but seem to associate it solely with completing hands-on experiments or Eureka style discovery rather than with background reading, hypothesis formation and testing and finally communication of results. As Cervetti and Pearson (2012) note, students treat science texts as if they contained established truths, without understanding how facts are determined or thinking of science as way of answering questions. Furthermore, most first year science students do not know how 4 PREPRINT: Enhancing information literacy using Bernard Lonergan's Generalized Empirical Method to generate interesting research questions that would lead to the discovery of new information and contribute to their learning. Even within a science course, the students' laboratory experiences seldom go beyond replicating well-established observations, with minimal dialog when reporting the results.Students often lack an understanding of how a literature search contributes to an in-depth discussion of their laboratory results. Thus to succeed in college, students must transition from replication of data obtained in a highly ...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Enhancing Information Literacy Using Bernard Lonergan's Generalized Empirical Method: A Three-year Case Study in a First Year Biology Course

Rose-Wiles

Glenn

Stiskal

2017

The Journal of Academic Librarianship

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“…There is not a wide difference in thirds-but results do get slightly less relevant further down the page (see figure 2). The top third of results (results [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] were the most relevant, with the middle and bottom third dropping slightly. On average, these databases are sending more relevant references to the top of the search results, although a one-way between subjects ANOVA was conducted and there was not a significant effect between any of the thirds at the P < .05 level.…”

Section: Overall Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…7 Boolean use in OPACs, library databases, and the web has been copiously studied, most concluding that users have trouble understanding how to use Boolean to get relevant results and often use Boolean incorrectly. 8 Multiple studies have found only a small percentage of students use Boolean in their searches, and that is usually limited to the AND operator.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Boolean is Dead, Long Live the Boolean! Natural Language versus Boolean Searching in Introductory Undergraduate Instruction

Lowe¹,

Maxson²,

Stone³

et al. 2018

CRL

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Boolean logic can be a difficult concept for first-year, introductory students to grasp. This paper compares the results of Boolean and natural language searching across several databases with searches created from student research questions. Performance differences between databases varied. Overall, natural search language is at least as good as Boolean searching. With evidence that students struggle to grasp Boolean searching, and may not use it even after instruction, it could be left out of first-year instruction, freeing up valuable class time to focus on concepts such as question development and source evaluation. As the Framework for Information Literacy does not specifically address Boolean operators, the authors suggest it should have less prominence in first-year Information Literacy instruction. IntroductionConventional wisdom considers knowledge of Boolean logic a basic information retrieval Information Literacy (IL) skill. Librarians and other information professionals are taught the value of Boolean searching (referred to throughout this article interchangeably as "Boolean") in professional education, and it is seen in instruction, reference interactions, and database interfaces. However, the concept can be difficult for first-year (introductory) students to grasp, and it can take multiple sessions before a student demonstrates effective use of Boolean logic.A student's ability to use Boolean operators is a performance indicator within the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Compe-

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“…The inadequate use of these tools suggests a lack of awareness of their importance, or even of conceptual understanding of the system's functions (Trapido, 2016). Some studies for example, Dempsey and Valenti (2016) and Dahlen et al (2020) did not find significant impact of the DL instructional tutorials and the use of facets and search tools. Thus, a special attention needs to be paid to the interface design.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the user experience in a digital library

Barifah

Landoni

Eddakrouri

2020

Proc Assoc Inf Sci Technol

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Digital libraries (DLs) have been evaluated implicitly by analyzing the query behavior extracted from the log files (LFs), and explicitly by conducting user studies and usability tests. Unfortunately, such approaches do not fully assess the quality of the user experience (UX). Recently, UX is gaining momentum as a critical success factor across all sectors and became the ultimate criterion to guide user‐centered design. This is why we describe how the Mahlke's interaction UX framework can be adapted to the DL. We conducted a laboratory user study with 65 undergraduate students. Three data collection tools were considered: questionnaires, screen recording, and pick‐a‐mode scale. The findings of the study indicate that considering the UX when evaluating the DL provides useful insights of different aspects of the user interactions, perceptions and affective variables. The need to improve the DL system and simplify its interface still persists. Revisiting interfaces by implementing visualizing techniques is a possible solution.

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Student Use of Keywords and Limiters in Web-scale Discovery Searching

Cited by 20 publications

References 24 publications

Enhancing Information Literacy Using Bernard Lonergan's Generalized Empirical Method: A Three-year Case Study in a First Year Biology Course

Enhancing Information Literacy Using Bernard Lonergan's Generalized Empirical Method: A Three-year Case Study in a First Year Biology Course

The Boolean is Dead, Long Live the Boolean! Natural Language versus Boolean Searching in Introductory Undergraduate Instruction

Evaluating the user experience in a digital library

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