What Leads Ukrainian University Students to Use Wikipedia?

Abstract

The Internet provides students with information from a great number of online sources. Wikipedia is one of the most frequently suggested by search engines and popular students' reference websites. The purpose of the research was to study students' use and attitudes of Wikipedia and to find out the patterns of Wikipedia use as an information source for academic purposes amongst different student groups in a Ukrainian university considering the language used. The results revealed that the overwhelming majority of students used Wikipedia and most of the respondents used it for academic purposes. Students were likely to value Wikipedia's being short and informative for writing assignments at the beginning of their work. However, the findings suggest that Wikipedia's usage is restricted by the coverage and completeness of the Wikipedia content in students' native language and the level of their knowledge of English. We found that students' major, year and mode of study as well as teachers' approval can also relate to their use of Wikipedia in relation to university studies.

Percepción de los estudiantes universitarios sobre la fiabilidad de la Wikipedia

“…Estos resultados están en la línea de los obtenidos por Sánchez (2014), donde el 87% de los encuestados consideraba los artículos de la Wikipedia fiables en ocasiones. Los alumnos que formaron parte del grupo de discusión utilizan a menudo la Wikipedia y la consideran muy útil y completa, al igual que los resultados publicados por Mulina (2018). Sin embargo, surgieron dudas sobre la fiabilidad de esta, y ninguno de ellos aseveró que sea totalmente fiable, al igual que han indicado otros autores, como Arias (2009).…”

Quantifying Americanization: Coverage of American Topics in Different Wikipedias

“…Finally, we also need to consider the fact that low viewership may represent a lack of content rather than interest. Mulina (2018) noted that “the use of Wikipedia and the perception of its usefulness with non-English speaking users depends, by and large, on the completeness of the Wikipedia content in their native language as well as their knowledge of both second and foreign languages.” For example, the two smallest Wikipedias in our study are Laotian (about 4000 articles) and Somali (about 8000). It is likely that such Wikipedias may lack numerous articles that would be highly read if they existed.…”