TY - CONF

T1 - Between myth and reality

AU - Hyldegård, Jette

PY - 2010

Y1 - 2010

N2 - Many myths exist about the Google Generation which tend to overestimate the positive impact of ICT’s on young people. This paper presents and discusses the results of an exploratory case study of 43 Danish secondary school pupils’ information behaviour. Four research questions guided the study: 1) What characterises the information behaviour of Danish secondary school pupils? 2) Does the information behaviour differ across year of study? If so, in which way does it differ? 3) How is information seeking conceptualized and experienced? 4) How is the study centre and library conceptualized and experienced? The participants were 20 pupils at their first year of studying (1g) and 23 pupils from their third and final year of studying (3g) – all representatives of the Google Generation. Two identical surveys were handed out in class and followed by two focus groups; one with 6 participants from 1g and another with 7 participants from 3g. In addition, the librarian at the secondary school was interviewed for background information and her experiences of pupils’ information behaviour. The results of the pilot study will provide the foundation of a larger study on Danish secondary school pupils. It was found that the information behaviour of secondary school pupils to a large extent confirm the negative myths of the Google Generation in terms of information literacy and preferences for information resources. However, pupils at their third year generally tended to be more critical and to demonstrate more critical information skills, particularly at a cognitive level. Differences across gender were also identified in this study. As an interesting finding many of the pupils actually knew what would be the optimal way of acting when searching for information, but did not seem to know how. In addition, this ‘optimal’ behaviour was found to be in conflict with a rational approach to information practice across secondary school pupils.

AB - Many myths exist about the Google Generation which tend to overestimate the positive impact of ICT’s on young people. This paper presents and discusses the results of an exploratory case study of 43 Danish secondary school pupils’ information behaviour. Four research questions guided the study: 1) What characterises the information behaviour of Danish secondary school pupils? 2) Does the information behaviour differ across year of study? If so, in which way does it differ? 3) How is information seeking conceptualized and experienced? 4) How is the study centre and library conceptualized and experienced? The participants were 20 pupils at their first year of studying (1g) and 23 pupils from their third and final year of studying (3g) – all representatives of the Google Generation. Two identical surveys were handed out in class and followed by two focus groups; one with 6 participants from 1g and another with 7 participants from 3g. In addition, the librarian at the secondary school was interviewed for background information and her experiences of pupils’ information behaviour. The results of the pilot study will provide the foundation of a larger study on Danish secondary school pupils. It was found that the information behaviour of secondary school pupils to a large extent confirm the negative myths of the Google Generation in terms of information literacy and preferences for information resources. However, pupils at their third year generally tended to be more critical and to demonstrate more critical information skills, particularly at a cognitive level. Differences across gender were also identified in this study. As an interesting finding many of the pupils actually knew what would be the optimal way of acting when searching for information, but did not seem to know how. In addition, this ‘optimal’ behaviour was found to be in conflict with a rational approach to information practice across secondary school pupils.

KW - gymnasieelever

KW - informationsadfærd

KW - google-generation

KW - case studie

M3 - Paper

Y2 - 8 September 2010 through 10 September 2010

ER -