- Only about 47% of students are sure that they have ever been required to turn in a research paper exceeding 10 double spaced typed pages in length for any of their classes.
- More than 86% of students say that they understand the concept of plagiarism 'well' or 'very well'.
- 64% of students sampled say that they know how to contact a librarian online.
- 55.2% of the students in the sample had not asked for help from a librarian within the past year.
- Nearly 29% of students say that Google, Yahoo and other major search engine searches were the most important information source for their last research assignment.
- More than 9% of information needed for research papers was sourced from Wikipedia or other wickis.
- The higher the grade point average the less information for research papers was obtained from search engines such as Google or Yahoo.
Tracking innovation, development and experimentation in information studies and library science and spotting new technologies, trends, fun stuff and much more.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
The Survey of American College Students: Student Library Research Practices & Skills
This report ($100 to download!!) looks closely at the research practices and skills of a sample of 400 U.S. college students. I can't justify the money, but there are a few findings summarized in the abstract:
Many institutions limit access to their online information. Making this information available will be an asset to all.
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