2019 Charleston Library Conference

Congratulations! Your content is showing up in Google’s search results. Now students can find you more easily. But how are they evaluating your content as they look through the results? What makes them click on your result? What role does your title and snippet wording play in their perceptions? How does source recognition affect their credibility judgments? Can they tell if your content is a book, journal or blog? If these questions sound intriguing, come learn about the findings of an IMLS-funded research project, Researching Students’ Information Choices: Determining Identity and Judging Credibility in Digital Spaces. This study uses simulations of Google Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), a think-aloud protocol, and interviews to capture student’s point of selection behavior and real-time cognition in action. One-hundred and seventy-five students, from elementary to graduate school, searched for resources for a science assignment (the impact of the Burmese Python on the Florida Everglades) and made judgments on the helpfulness, citability and credibility of the resources. They were also asked to identify the container of the information. This presentation will focus on the judgements from the 90 higher education students in the study. Among the SERPs the students reviewed, there are e-books, e-journals, magazines, preprints, websites, and news from major publishers and aggregators as well as library institutional repositories. Since the results are fascinating and fun, we are going to bring in the fun by presenting the results in a 1980s game show format. Contestants from the audience will see if they can predict student responses from the study, so come on down!