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Millennials’ Mysterious Search Habits

Millennials’ Mysterious Search Habits . Lucy Holman MLA Annual Conference May 15, 2009. Millennials. Experiential learners Hypertext learners “Satisficers” Judge by visual relevancy Prefer simple interface Value immediacy Search more than browse Think they’re skilled. Mental Models.

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Millennials’ Mysterious Search Habits

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  1. Millennials’ Mysterious Search Habits Lucy Holman MLA Annual Conference May 15, 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

  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. What they do…. MisspellSearch w/in site

  12. And...what they can’t do

  13. 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….”

  14. 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

  15. How they feel about libraries

  16. How they conceptualize search tools

  17. Mental Models

  18. Implications How we teach How databases work

  19. Questions? langsdale.ubalt.edu/millennials/millennialsMLA.ppt lholman@ubalt.edu

  20. References Bilal, D., & Kirby, J. (2002). Differences and similarities in information seeking: Children and adults as Web users. Information Processing and Management, 38 (5), 649-670. Erdelez, S. (1999). Information encountering: It’s more than just bumping into information. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, 25 (3). Retrieved February 15, 2007 from http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Feb-99/erdelez.html Head, A. J., & Eisenberg, M. B. (2009). Finding context: What today’s college students say about conducting research in the digital age. Project Information Literacy Progress Report, Information School. University of Washington. Retrieved March 23, 2009 from http://projectinfolit.org/pdfs/PIL_ProgressReport_2_2009.pdf Holliday, W., & Li, Q. (2004). Understanding the millennials: Updating our knowledge about students. Reference Services Review, 32 (4), 356-366. Retrieved February 20, 2007 from Emerald database. Lippincott, J. K. (2005). Net generation students and libraries. In D. G. Oblinger & J. L. Oblinger (Eds.), Educating the net generation (pp. 13.1-13.15). Boulder, CO: Educause. Retrieved February 11, 2007 from http://www.educause.edu/educatingthenetgen/ Oblinger, D., & Oblinger, J. L. (2005). It it age or IT: First steps toward understanding the net generation. In D. G. Oblinger & J. L. Oblinger (Eds.), Educating the net generation (pp. 2.1- 2.20). Boulder, CO: Educause. Retrieved February 11, 2007 from http://www.educause.edu/educatingthenetgen/ Prenksy, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants, part II: Do they really think differently? On the Horizon, 9 (6), 15-24. Retrieved April 6, 2007 from: http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/ Salaway, G., Caruso, J. B., & Nelson, M.R.(2008). The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2008 (Research Study, Vol. 8). Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research. Retrieved February 28, 2009 from http://www.educause.edu/ecar. Stein, J., Bright, A., George, C., Hurlbert, T., Linke, E., and St. Clair, G. (2006). In their own words: A preliminary report on the value of the internet and library in graduate student research. Performance Measurement and Metrics, 7 (2), 107-115. Thomas, C., & McDonald, R. H. (2005). Millennial net value(s): Disconnects between libraries and the information age mindset. Florida State University D-Scholarship Repository, Article #4. Retrieved February 24, 2007 from:http://dscholarship.lib.fsu.edu/general/4 University College London (UCL) CIBER project. (2008). Information behaviour of the researcher of the future: A CIBER briefing paper. Retrieved February 28, 2009 from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/reppres/gg_final_keynote_11012008.pdf Williams, P. (1999). The net generation: The experiences, attitudes and behaviour of children using the Internet for their own purposes. Aslib Proceedings, 51 (9), 315-322. Retrieved November 3, 2007 from ABI Inform database.

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