A two-year research study performed by the Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries Project revealed that Google is often used inefficiently.

Andrew Asher, an ERIAL lead project anthropologist, said the goal of the study was to learn how students performed research and to understand how students interacted with libraries, librarians and professors.

ERIAL utilized nine qualitative research techniques throughout five Illinois universities to attain its data, according to ERIAL’s website. Sixty students took part in research process interviews, which allowed anthropologists to follow students around the library while they conducted research. Through this method, Asher observed students had difficulty with not just limiting their searches, but also with assessing the results, according to the website.

‘The bigger issues that students had were evaluating the results, understanding what kind of research they were looking at or evaluating how reliable the information was,’ Asher said. ‘Many students were only looking at what first popped up, which isn’t always reliable.’

Asher said he believes the solution to poor research habits lies in the hands of the student.

‘Students need to educate themselves on how search engines organize information to know what pitfalls they can fall into and to know how to use search refinements,’ he said.

Asher said he was not surprised with the results, as researchers had a prior suspicion from past studies that students were using Google extensively. However, researchers were surprised to discover the lack of student initiative to seek help from librarians, Asher said.

Howard Turtle, director of the Center for Natural Language Processing in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, cited the 1985 Blair and Maron study, which found that when trained searchers believed they were finding at least 75 percent of the relevant documents, they were actually finding fewer than 20 percent.

Pamela Thomas, an associate librarian in the Learning Commons department of E.S. Bird Library, agrees that students aren’t proficient at research.

‘I’m not surprised at all. It’s funny it’s getting a huge reaction because any librarian who works with students can tell you that there’s a gap between what professors think students know how to do and what they actually can do,’ Thomas said.

Thomas specifically attributes students’ inability to properly assess and evaluate what they find as the biggest problem with Google.

‘Students don’t know how to focus in on what they find and if it’s appropriate for academic results,’ she said. ‘Many do not know that Google Scholar exists. Instead, they are throwing in key words and relying on first page results. Often these first pages are only paid information sites with very superficial treatment of the topic.’

Despite Thomas’ observations of students’ poor research skills, she said she does not often find students asking for advice. In fact, she said she believes students do not realize that resources — such as the Learning Commons staff — are available to help them.

Megan Raker, a senior history and policy studies major at SU, said she didn’t realize there was an improper way to use the search engine.

‘When I use Google, I just go by what’s at the top,’ Raker said. ‘If I want to find general information, I go straight to Wikipedia. I know that’s not academically appropriate.’

On the other hand, Yuhan Xu, a magazine, newspaper and online journalism graduate student, said Google is not only a helpful website, but also an efficient one.

‘I think Google is great because it ranges from having the latest news to offering things that are harder to reach,’ Xu said. ‘I don’t have a problem using it. I find the more keywords you put in, the more likely you will be able to find information that is reliable.’

John Emm, a sophomore information management and technologies major, said he thinks the problem is not that students are unable to use Google efficiently, but that they are just lazy.

Said Emm: ‘I bet most of the students that have a problem with Google are just mad because their search isn’t satisfied by the first link on the page.’

kfluttma@syr.edu  

Published on September 20, 2011 at 12:00 pm