Millennials’ Mysterious Search Habits

1. Millennials’ Mysterious Search Habits Lucy Holman Virginia Library Association October 30, 2009

2. Millennials • Experiential learners • Hypertext learners • “Satisficers” • Judge by visual relevancy • Prefer simple interface • Value immediacy • Search more than browse • Think they’re skilled

3. Mental Models • Internal cognitive representations of systems and processes that assist in explaining and predicting one’s interaction with such systems (Norman, 1983)

4. Project • Observe students in search habits and compare with identified mental models

5. Methodology • Observations September – October 2008 • Modified Contextual Inquiry • Observed while conducting real research assignment • Recorded sessions with software Morae – audio, video and screen capture • Conducted post-observation interviews

6. Participants 21 first-year students at UB 20 in learning communities

7. Participants • All had at least one computer at home • 57% had two or more • 91% had a profile on a social networking site This study observed 21 students in their first semester at the University of Baltimore (UB). UB’s first-year curriculum revolves around the concept of learning communities with three interrelated courses –one humanities, one social science and either an information literacy or speech communications course. I recruited students from three of the four learning communities in Fall 2008. Although small in number, the 21 students demographically represent the entering class at UB: 52% women and 48% men; 48% white, 43% African American and 9% Asian; 29% 19 years old, 48% 18, 14% 17, and 5% 16 years old. All participants had at least one computer at home; 57% had two or more. Ninety-one percent had a profile on a social networking site. Figure 1 shows their daily Internet use.

8. A bit more about the assignments • ECON 100 – comparison of political parties’ stand on major issue • ARTS 101 – study of artist • CMAT 201 – speech on cultural issue • IDIS 101 – career search • ENTR 100 – midterm exam

9. Results: What they use

10. Results: How they search

11. Results: Techniques Used/ Mistakes Made

12. What they do…. MisspellSearch w/in site

13. And...what they can’t do • Jkj;

14. What they seem to know about search....and what they don’t “None of them [search engines] connect all the words together; they just kind of pull out whatever they feel is the most important word.” “I’m going to try to change the words around because you can get a lot more. You get more hits every time you change it around the words that they find relevant.” “I don't know exactly why they do it, but if you switch, if you're looking for education and virtues and then you switch to virtues and education, for some reason it brings up completely different websites….”

15. How they evaluate Thoughts on reliability of sites, Wikipedia, and other musings “The one I usually stay away from is Wikipedia just because it's been so repeated since high school, 'don't use Wikipedia because anyone can say anything they want about that artist, and it doesn't have to be true.'” - MaryAnn

16. How they feel about libraries

17. How they conceptualize search tools

18. Mental Models

19. Implications How we teach How databases work

20. Questions? langsdale.ubalt.edu/millennialsVLA.ppt lholman@ubalt.edu

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