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In Their Words: Student Re4ections on Information-Seeking In Their Words: Student Re4ections on Information-Seeking
Behaviors Behaviors
Sarah P.C. Dahlen
Kathlene Hanson
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The Journal of Academic Librarianship 49 (2023) 102713
Available online 24 April 2023
0099-1333/© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).
In their words: Student reections on information-seeking behaviors
Sarah P.C. Dahlen
*
, Kathlene Hanson
California State University, Monterey Bay, 100 Campus Center, Seaside, CA 93955, USA
ARTICLE INFO
Keywords:
Information literacy
Information-seeking behavior
Search strategies
Source selection
Instructor inuence
ABSTRACT
Academic librarians try to facilitate student information seeking by providing classroom instruction, creating
tutorials and guides, and selecting and modifying search tools to best meet student needs and preferences. These
efforts are often informed by interactions with students, and can be even better informed through analysis of
student descriptions of their searching practices. In this case study, 50 upper-division students from the Social
and Behavioral Sciences major completed searching tasks in a few library search tools and were then interviewed
about their search behaviors, both in the experimental setting and in general. Their responses illuminate some of
their tendencies, including considerations when choosing sources, strategies employed when searches fail, and
adoption of their instructors’ priorities.
Introduction
College students are frequently faced with demands to nd and
evaluate information, and it is the job of the academic librarian to
facilitate that process. It therefore behooves us to understand as
completely as possible the information-seeking behaviors of students. As
we provide instruction in the classroom and at the reference desk, create
online tutorials or guides, and select and congure databases, our efforts
can be impactfully informed by our knowledge of how students think
about searching for and evaluating information. To that end, the current
study analyzes qualitative data from student interviews to attempt to
address the following questions: How do students describe their strate-
gies for searching for and evaluating information? What are their
criteria for selecting sources?
While there have been numerous studies on student information-
seeking behavior, ours makes a novel contribution in several respects.
First, our qualitative dataset was collected as part of a larger, mixed
methods study, and we are able to complement, build upon, and trian-
gulate with the quantitative analyses we previously conducted (Dahlen
et al., 2020; Dahlen & Hanson, 2017). Second, our interview questions
are in some cases parallel to those in other studies, allowing us to
corroborate or contradict earlier ndings, and in other cases break new
ground, particularly in the area of student reasoning behind selecting
sources after a search. Finally, one of the major themes that emerged
from our analysis is the inuence that instructors have on student
information-seeking behaviors and values, which is not a prominent
motif in the library science literature.
This study was conducted at [our institution], a comprehensive,
public university located on California’s central coast. When these data
were collected in Spring 2015, our enrollment was around 6400 stu-
dents, 94 % of whom were undergraduates. Fifty-eight percent were rst
generation college students, 45 % were from historically excluded racial
or ethnic groups, and 35 % were low-income.
Literature review
Search strategies
Today’s college students have grown up searching for information
online. While most students have ample searching experience, their skill
sets have been largely developed using Google, which had 90 % of the
search engine market in 2010 and 84 % in 2022 (Statista Research
Department, 2022). Novice searchers tend to have condence in their
ability to nd what they need in library databases using the same stra-
tegies as they would in Google (Bloom & Deyrup, 2015; Perruso, 2016).
While this might be viewed as disadvantageous, it may in fact be useful
in preparing students to identify “information pieces” to use in making
source selection decisions in library databases (Bodemer, 2012).
Users of Google or other search engines will be accustomed to the
way that these tools rank results, placing the most relevant ones rst and
making it largely unnecessary to go past the rst page of results. Asher
et al. (2013) observed that 92 % of students using library search tools
and Google Scholar selected all their sources from the rst page of re-
sults, effectively outsourcing much of the relevance evaluation to the
* Corresponding author at: California State University, Monterey Bay, 100 Campus Center, Library, Seaside, CA 93955, USA.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S.P.C. Dahlen), [email protected] (K. Hanson).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
The Journal of Academic Librarianship
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jacalib
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2023.102713
Received 25 January 2023; Received in revised form 7 April 2023; Accepted 10 April 2023
The Journal of Academic Librarianship 49 (2023) 102713
2
search engine. Similarly, Hamlett and Georgas (2019) found that only
17 % of students went past the rst page of search results in library
discovery systems. Our study builds on this research, investigating stu-
dents’ awareness of their search behavior by comparing how often
students go beyond the rst page of results to how often they report
doing so.
When searching for information, convenience and efciency are top
student priorities. Cross and Gullikson (2020) observed students rushing
through the search and selection process, scanning titles and abstracts
for their keywords before quickly moving on, even when their initial
search terms did not contain all of the concepts related to their topic.
Undergraduates surveyed by Komissarov and Murray (2016) placed
higher value on the immediate availability of full text than on most other
considerations, including currency, credibility, and even their ability to
understand the source. While these priorities may not apply to a subset
of undergraduates engaged in advanced research, they are generally
embraced by the typical college student (Bonnet et al., 2013).
While students have their go-to search strategies, they may employ
different tactics when their initial search fails to uncover the desired
information. Students in Dalal et al.’s (2015) study often changed their
search terms in response to disappointing search results. Asher and Duke
(2012) found that changing the research topic was one reaction to a
failed search, though most students spent time searching and revising
their search terms before doing so. Bloom and Deyrup (2015) noted that
students were “habitual” topic changers, and that if changing the topic
did not achieve the desired result, students would change databases.
Another approach is satiscing, or making do with results that are less
than ideal. Agosto (2002) describes youth satiscing in relation to web-
based decision making. Even more experienced students have been
observed to satisce strategically, selecting sources that they knew
would be sufcient to perform well on their assignment (Warwick et al.,
2009). Our study expands on the ndings described here by prompting
students to reect in greater depth on their strategies after a failed
search.
Evaluation and selection of information
Multiple studies have evaluated sources chosen by students, looking
at criteria such as relevance, currency, and credibility (e.g. Dahlen &
Hanson, 2017; Lambert et al., 2021; Leeder et al., 2012; Pearce, 2019);
far fewer have done what we do in the present study, which is to ask
students about their reasoning when making these choices. Twait (2005)
explored the criteria that students employ when they select sources by
having them think aloud while conducting searches and asking them
what an ideal source would be. List et al. (2016) provided students with
a list of eight possible sources that they could use to answer question
prompts, and then asked them to justify their choices. Our study com-
bines elements of these two approaches by having students conduct their
own searches for information, then questioning them about their
reasoning for choosing each source. This approach of interviewing stu-
dents while the search was fresh in their minds was advantageous in that
it led to detailed answers about specic sources they had chosen. We
also asked students explicitly about the role that currency, credibility,
and relevance played in their selection of sources.
Currency
The date of publication is an important consideration when selecting
sources, though what is considered acceptable will vary depending on
the discipline and the topic of research. In their assessment of assign-
ment prompts, Head and Eisenberg (2010a) found that fewer than 11 %
of prompts mentioned currency as a factor in selecting sources. Simi-
larly, Koelling and Russo (2021) document infrequent inclusion of
publication date as a criterion in assignment prompts for rst-year
composition classes. Instructors may be reluctant to assign a specic
date range due to topical variation in acceptable publication dates, and
they may address currency in other ways in the classroom, which seems
likely given that many students are attentive to this consideration. In a
broad-scale student survey, 77 % of students reported considering cur-
rency when evaluating websites and 67 % did so for library resources
(Head & Eisenberg, 2010b). Additional studies have also documented
publication date as an important consideration for students when
selecting sources (Cross & Gullikson, 2020; Komissarov & Murray,
2016), though it was less important in others (List et al., 2016).
Credibility
Students are generally aware that source credibility is an important
consideration when selecting sources, though they are not universally
condent in their ability to assess it. Komissarov and Murray (2016)
report that students at their institution described the peer review pro-
cess, author reputation, and source reputation as “somewhat important”
considerations, and all of the student participants in Vinyard et al.’s
(2017) study mentioned the importance of using credible sources.
Bonnet et al. (2013) found that some undergraduates engaged in
advanced research mentioned assessing the credibility of the sources
they used, and Twait’s (2005) sample of students mentioned credibility
more often than most other selection criteria. However, almost a quarter
of students in Insua et al.’s (2018) study reported low condence in
nding credible sources. This may be exacerbated by assignment
prompts only addressing vaguely, at best, criteria for source credibility
(Koelling & Russo, 2021). When students are unsure how to evaluate
credibility, they may place their trust in library databases to return
credible results (Asher et al., 2013; Liu et al., 2018; Rosenzweig et al.,
2019).
Relevance
Unsurprisingly, relevance is a primary consideration for students
when selecting sources. Komissarov and Murray (2016) found that
relevance was the most important consideration for their students. In
Twait’s (2005) study, content relevance was the only source selection
criterion mentioned by every student participant. Schultheiß et al.
(2018) found in their eye-tracking study that while students were
inuenced by the prominence of search results (as ranked by Google),
they chose more relevant results over higher ranking results. Relevance
and other non-epistemic considerations were more frequently cited by
students as justication for source selection than epistemic criteria, such
as credibility, in List et al.’s (2016) investigation.
Instructor inuence
A major theme that emerged from our research is how inuential
instructors are in shaping students’ information-seeking behaviors and
dispositions. While we were unable to locate other literature similarly
documenting the extent of this inuence, there are a number of in-
vestigations that address the roles of non-library faculty in information
literacy instruction. Several studies have found that students are more
likely to seek help from faculty than from librarians or other sources
(Bonnet et al., 2013; Catalano, 2013; Thomas et al., 2017; Vinyard et al.,
2017). This trend may be countered, however, when instructors refer
their students to a librarian, which makes them more likely to seek
librarian assistance (Vinyard et al., 2017). Instructors also play a role in
recommending library databases to students (Komissarov & Murray,
2016), and in inuencing their source selection decisions (Twait, 2005).
Based on graduate students’ reliance on faculty for assistance with
locating information, Catalano (2013) has proposed training faculty in
advanced search techniques, and Lacy and Hamlett (2021) have
described a successful train-the-instructor model at a community col-
lege. Team teaching is another way to combine the strengths of librar-
ians and other faculty in meaningful ways (Bharuthram et al., 2019).
Instructors’ sustained interactions with students puts them in a good
position to inuence students’ information-seeking behaviors and
dispositions.
S.P.C. Dahlen and K. Hanson
The Journal of Academic Librarianship 49 (2023) 102713
3
Methods
Data collection
This research utilizes part of an extensive dataset that we collected in
2015. In order to investigate various aspects of student information-
seeking behavior, we created an experimental setting in which student
participants were asked to complete a search task in three library search
tools. Participants were given a prompt to nd the “best quality” articles
(left intentionally vague to allow for interpretation) on one of two
topics, which were chosen to represent the kind of broad research topics
students might start with at the beginning of an assignment (see Ap-
pendix A). The search tools used were EBSCO’s Social Sciences Abstracts
and two versions of ProQuest’s Summon, one that employed the default
settings and one that was pre-scoped to exclude newspapers and to
include information from social science disciplines, thus imitating some
of the parameters of a subject database like Social Sciences Abstracts.
Participants’ search processes and the two articles they chose from each
search tool were recorded with screencast software. Additionally, they
were interviewed by the authors both during and after their searches.
Finally, participants completed a survey about their search experience.
IRB approval was obtained in 2014 and covered data collection and all
subsequent analysis.
Much of the quantitative data we collected has already been
analyzed and published. One previous nding was that while most
participants preferred to use the discovery system, they selected more
authoritative articles from the traditional database, Social Sciences
Abstracts (Dahlen & Hanson, 2017). We also found that participants’
search behaviors varied between tools, that there are three distinct
categories of facet use among participants, and that certain search be-
haviors aid or hinder participants’ ability to select high quality infor-
mation from library search tools (Dahlen et al., 2020). The current study
draws primarily on the qualitative data collected from formal interview
questions and more casual conversations with participants during and
after their searches. These data had previously been used only selec-
tively to provide additional context for the quantitative data, but had not
yet been systematically analyzed.
Our qualitative data consist of the transcribed conversations between
the authors and study participants. The screencasts were captured with
Camtasia Relay and the dialogue was transcribed by NVivo Transcrip-
tion. Some of the transcribed dialogue is casual conversation during the
search process, but most is from interviews, which we conducted in a
semi-structured manner. After participants selected their articles from
each search tool, we asked them why they picked those articles and
whether they would feel condent using them for a class assignment.
After the searches in all three tools had been completed, we asked par-
ticipants a few additional questions about their considerations when
selecting articles, including the publication date, the credibility of the
source, and the relevance of the article to the topic. Finally, we asked a
couple of questions about their typical searching habits, including how
often they go beyond the rst page of search results and what they do
when they are not satised with the results of their search. (See Ap-
pendix B for exact wording of questions.) Our methods differ from those
of previous studies on student information-seeking behavior primarily in
that we explore, through interviews conducted after students completed
search tasks in library databases, student reasoning for search behaviors
and article selection, in some cases triangulating the results with our
previously published quantitative data for deeper understanding.
We acknowledge that our dataset is eight years old at the time of
publication, and that this is a limitation of our research. Search tools
have been updated in the subsequent years, and students may have
changed as well. Nonetheless, we believe that our data and its analysis
still offer important insights into student search behavior. While vendors
continually modify their search tools, the general look and feel of the
interfaces of discovery systems, and particularly EBSCO databases (such
as Social Science Abstracts), remain largely the same. This study
investigates student sentiment and motivation around search behavior
and source choice, which we would not expect to be substantially
affected by recent modications to library databases. Most of our stu-
dent participants belong to the same generation as students today
(Generation Z), though today’s students have lived through the COVID-
19 pandemic and its concomitant crisis of trust in information, which
may have affected students’ information-seeking behaviors in ways that
are difcult for us to predict. As librarians who have frequent contact
with students, however, we continue to hear today’s students express
many of the same sentiments that are systematically captured in our
data. Our study is a snapshot of student behavior and sentiment at a
particular point in time, and it can serve as a baseline for future research
on this topic.
Participants
Our study participants were 50 juniors and seniors majoring in Social
and Behavioral Sciences (SBS) at California State University, Monterey
Bay (CSUMB). This major was chosen based on one of our original
motivations for collecting this dataset, which was to answer the question
of whether an indexing and abstracting database, such as Social Sciences
Abstracts, is worth retaining when most students seem to prefer dis-
covery services. The answer to that question was “yes” (Dahlen &
Hanson, 2017), and to answer it we selected a study population that we
deemed the most likely to benet from the Social Sciences Abstracts
database. Given that we were limited to 50 participants for practical
reasons (each participant received a $50 gift card incentive and had an
unlimited amount of searching time, though the average was 45 min),
we also thought it preferable to limit our study to a more uniform
population rather than factor in additional variables such as major or
class standing.
Participants were recruited via email, and the rst 50 to respond
were selected. This sample represented 26 % of the population of upper-
level SBS majors at the time of data collection. To try to reduce the
perception of invasiveness, we did not collect demographic information
about the participants. The demographics of this major at the time of
data collection were: 48 % Latinx students, 34 % White students, and 52
% underrepresented minorities. This major has signicant numbers of
transfer students (75 %), rst generation college students (68 %), and
low income students (47 %). Sixty-two percent of SBS majors are female,
38 % are male, and 63 % are aged 24 and under. This study’s rst author
is the liaison librarian to this department and conducts classroom in-
struction and one-on-one research consultations with its students.
Among our participants, 64 % reported previously attending library
instruction sessions or having a research consultation with a librarian.
Data analysis
The transcribed dialogue was analyzed in NVivo. Transcripts were
coded using open coding followed by focused coding. Themes were not
identied in advance but rather derived from the data. While all qual-
itative data was coded, the only data reported here is that which is
relevant to our research focus on search practices and source selection.
The themes that emerged are presented below, along with descriptions,
the number of participants whose comments were coded at each theme,
and illustrative quotes.
Results
Many of the results presented here are organized by interview
questions, so that we can see the themes that emerged from participants’
responses to each question. Interview questions were primarily focused
on participant practices for searching or for evaluating and selecting
information, so these results are presented in those categories. There
was also a theme that appeared across interview questions/categories
(the inuence of instructors on participant behavior), and that will be
S.P.C. Dahlen and K. Hanson
The Journal of Academic Librarianship 49 (2023) 102713
4
presented separately.
Search process
The ways in which students use library search tools was a major focus
of an earlier publication using this dataset, and in that investigation, we
focused on what participants did while searching by analyzing the
screencasts of their searches (Dahlen et al., 2020). Because we were able
to collect data on what students actually do when searching, rather than
what they say they do when asked, our interview questions on this topic
were limited.
Pages of results
Our rst question was: When searching for articles for a class
assignment, how often would you say that you go beyond the rst page
of search results? Forty-eight percent had responses indicating that they
often or always go beyond the rst page when searching, while 26 %
indicated that they sometimes do this, and 26 % indicated that they
rarely or never do (Table 1). A number of participants observed that
results tend to get less relevant further into the results list, and that was
their reason for not going too far into the pages of results.
Strategies for failed searches
Another question we asked participants was what they do when they
are searching for information sources and are not getting the results that
they hoped for. We specied that they were to reect on their general
search process, not specically what they did during that day’s search
exercise. Search term modication was the most frequently mentioned
strategy (n = 31, 62 %), followed by searching elsewhere (n = 22, 44 %).
All of the strategies that were mentioned by more than one participant
are included in Table 2, which is partially presented below and fully
presented in Appendix C.
Some of the themes that arose most frequently have sub-themes that
further elucidate participants’ search strategies. Even when sub-themes
are only present for a small number of participants, we believe that they
merit mention, as they are likely to be present for additional participants
who did not describe their process with the same level of detail.
Within the “search term modication” theme (n = 31, 62 %), par-
ticipants mentioned making a change to the search terms, primarily
trying different words or phrases. Some of the more specic modica-
tions that came up more than once include:
● Narrowing the search by adding additional terms or making terms
more specic (n = 4, 8 %)
● Broadening the search by removing search terms (n = 2, 4 %)
● Rearranging the search terms by putting them in different orders or
in different search boxes (n = 2, 4 %)
● Using terms found in an article record (keywords, words from ab-
stract) as search terms (n = 2, 4 %)
Some of the participants whose strategy was to switch to a different
search tool (“search elsewhere” theme; n = 22, 44 %) were specic in
mentioning where they search. These responses included:
● Google Scholar (n = 8, 16 %)
● Another library database (n = 6, 12 %)
● Google (n = 6, 12 %)
● Wikipedia (n = 1, 2 %)
Several participants who mentioned using a non-library search tool
mentioned using that tool to nd sources or keywords and returning to
the library search tools to search with the newly discovered terms or to
nd full text (n = 4, 8 %).
There was not a lot of consistency in the responses within the “utilize
search tool features” theme (n = 8, 16 %), meaning that participants did
not mention utilizing the same search tool features. The only exception
is the two participants who mentioned the date lter, though one
wanted to use it to broaden and the other to narrow. Within the “ask for
help” theme (n = 7, 14 %), ve participants indicated they would ask
their instructor and two said they would ask a librarian.
Evaluation and selection of information
Recall that as part of their searching exercise, participants chose two
“best quality” articles from each of the three library search tools, for a
total of six articles chosen by each of the 50 participants. After each
article was chosen, we asked participants: Why did you pick this article?
Most responses listed multiple reasons for choosing each article. We then
followed up with: Would you feel condent using this article as a source
Table 1
Themes from participant responses to “When searching for articles for a class
assignment, how often would you say that you go beyond the rst page of search
results?”.
Theme Participant
count and
percentage
Theme description Illustrative quote(s)
Often or
always go
beyond rst
page
n = 24
48 %
Participant describes
frequently going past
the rst page of
search results
“I’ll generally check
the rst two or three
pages. Most
databases, as far as
I’ve seen, tend to put
the most relevant to
what you’re
searching in those
rst few pages, so if I
don’t nd something
that I’m looking for in
the rst two to three
pages, I’ll generally
rene my search.
Change it to
something else. How
far do I go past the
rst page? Almost all
the time. How far do I
go past the third
page? Almost never.”
Sometimes go
beyond rst
page
n = 13
26 %
Participant describes
occasionally going
past the rst page of
search results
“It really depends. I
would say if it’s hard
to nd a source I
would keep going,
but if it’s something I
see right away and it
looks really good to
me and I start reading
it and it’s really good,
then I’ll stay on the
rst page. It just
depends. I would
say—I can’t even say
a number, it just
depends on the
situation.”
Rarely or
never go
beyond rst
page
n = 13
26 %
Participant describes
going past the rst
page of search results
seldom or never
“If I’m having real
trouble nding
something that I can
put a source to I’ll just
start digging through
pages. But I hardly
ever will really go
past the rst page. If I
feel like I have to,
then that’s when I
start changing my
[search terms] at the
top to see if it’s what
I’m typing in, if I
can’t alter it a little
bit.”
S.P.C. Dahlen and K. Hanson
The Journal of Academic Librarianship 49 (2023) 102713
5
for an actual assignment? Of the 300 articles chosen, there was only one
“no” response to this question. This gives us some condence that par-
ticipants were choosing articles using similar criteria to what they might
use for their coursework.
Reasons for choosing articles
Many themes emerged from participants’ responses to why they
chose their articles (Table 3). The most frequently occurring theme was
“content,” which captures those responses that described the content of
the article as their reason for choosing it (n = 39, 78 %). Another
common theme was “contrasting or comparative focus” (n = 32, 64 %),
in which participants described selecting articles because they were
similar to or different from other articles they had chosen for the exer-
cise. The “connection” theme (n = 31, 62 %) captures those responses
that indicate that articles were chosen in part because the participant
had a connection to it. These connections were sometimes personal
experiences that led the participant to relate to the article, sometimes an
interest in the topic, and sometimes beliefs or thoughts on the topic that
were reinforced by the article.
Participant responses were coded under the “authoritative, data-
driven source” theme (n = 30, 60 %) when they mentioned that the
methods were scientically sound or referred to the peer-review process
as providing scientic validity. Just more than half of participants noted
that “similarity to the prompt” (n = 26, 52 %) was a factor in choosing
their articles. Slightly fewer participants mentioned “scope” (n = 24, 48
%) as a consideration in article selection, though some were drawn to
the broadness of articles and others to their specicity. The remainder of
the themes can be seen in Appendix C, Table 3.
As they responded to the question of how they selected sources, some
participants mentioned where they found the information that led them
to choose a particular article (Table 4). While not everyone described
where they found this information, 24 participants (48 %) said that they
found it in the abstract and 14 (28 %) found it in the title.
After searching all three tools and selecting all of their articles,
participants answered a few additional questions: to what extent they
considered, in choosing their articles, the date of publication, the
credibility of the authors or the publication, and the relevance to their
topic. Once they had answered, participants were also asked if what they
had just described was also the approach they use when doing research
for a class. The response was almost universally “yes,” though there were
some caveats about needing to conform to specic assignment prompts
or instructor preferences.
Currency
With regard to the currency of the articles, students were asked: To
what extent did you consider the date of publication when you chose
your articles? Their responses were coded by whether they indicated
that the publication date was an important consideration, somewhat
important, or not very important (Table 5). Seventy-six percent of par-
ticipants expressed that the date of publication was an important (n =
19, 38 %) or somewhat important (n = 19, 38 %) consideration when
selecting articles. The remaining participants (n = 12, 24 %) suggested
that the date of publication was not a very important consideration.
In addition to these broad categories of the importance placed on the
date of publication, several other themes emerged throughout the in-
terviews that shed light on how students think about source currency
(Table 6). Forty percent of participants (n = 20) indicated that they have
been inuenced by their instructors to focus on more recently published
sources, either because they need to follow the instructions of assign-
ment prompts or because their instructors have convinced them of the
value of more recent publications. Another theme was that the range of
acceptable publication dates varied depending on the topic of research
(n = 13, 26 %). A nal theme was the intentional selection of a mix of
articles with older and newer publication dates (n = 13, 26 %).
Credibility
Participants were also asked: To what extent did you consider the
credibility of the authors or the publication when you chose your arti-
cles? A majority of participants (n = 27, 54 %) indicated that they
ensured that their articles were scholarly, and 19 (38 %) specically
mentioned peer review. Because the question referred to “the credibility
of the authors or the publication,” 15 participants (30 %) noted that they
did not specically consider the authors or the journal, though many of
them were looking for scholarly articles. Twelve participants (24 %) said
that they considered the journal, and three (6 %) said that they
considered the author. Eight (16 %) noted that they used the database
limiters to narrow their search to scholarly articles only, though many
more of them (n = 31, 62 %) were observed to do this in at least some of
their searches. Three participants (6 %) mentioned the article’s
appearance as part of their evaluation of its credibility (Table 7).
In addition to the themes above that surfaced from responses to a
specic question, several other themes related to credibility emerged
throughout the interviews that shed light on how students think about
this topic (Table 8). Most notably, 16 participants (32 %) made com-
ments indicating that they trusted the search tool to determine the
source credibility. In some cases (n = 5; 10 %), the very presence in a
library database was enough to indicate that the source was credible; in
others (n = 13; 26 %) the database’s label was considered a sufcient
marker of credibility. A number of participants (n = 14, 28 %) indicated
that their instructors had an inuence on their perceptions of credibility
and what types of sources count as sufciently credible. A few partici-
pants (n = 3, 6 %) mentioned ways in which non-scholarly sources can
be useful in the search process.
Table 2
Select themes from participant responses to “What do you do when you’re not getting the results you hoped for?” (full list of themes in Appendix C).
Theme Participant count
and percentage
Theme description Illustrative quote(s)
Search term
modication
n = 31
62 %
Make a change to the search terms, including
using different words or changing their order
“When I don’t get the results, I alter what I’m searching for. So like for ‘academic
achievement,’ I just think of anything else that might mean the same thing, like a
synonym of a phrase or something. But mostly just changing up the words and word
play, adding in certain phrases. Because it might trigger other articles that have the
same focus or subject, but just they’ll word it differently.”
Search elsewhere n = 22
44 %
Switch to a different search tool, including
library and non-library tools
“I would Google. Honestly, I’ll just type that into Google, and I’ll go through whatever,
trying to nd different key words or something—just get lost in Google.”
“Google Scholar as a backup. I can always go back and look in the library articles and
databases, and you can look up other things that maybe will be relevant when you
search. I know Sage Journals is another different one, other than these. Maybe use one
of those other sources.”
Use search tool
features
n = 8
16 %
Use lters, drop down menus, or other
features of the search tool
“On this site like [Summon], It gives you a certain checklist like do you want to nd
specic journals or only articles or in what language and what topic. I click those so
that kind of reduces my search.”
S.P.C. Dahlen and K. Hanson
The Journal of Academic Librarianship 49 (2023) 102713
6
Relevance
Participants were subsequently asked: To what extent did you
consider the relevance of the article to your topic when you chose your
articles? (Table 9). Every participant said that relevance was considered,
and 60 % (n = 30) made comments indicating that it was a top
consideration. The second most frequently occurring theme was
“different angles,” in which participants expressed their intention to nd
articles addressing different perspectives on a topic while still main-
taining relevance to the research question. Twelve participants (24 %)
noted that they evaluated relevance by the presence of key words from
the prompt in the article or article record. A couple of participants (4 %)
mentioned that they look for articles that are interesting to them in
addition to being relevant to the topic.
In their responses to the question about considering relevance, a
number of participants mentioned specic parts of parts of articles
where they look to determine relevance. Ten participants (20 %) named
the abstract, nine (18 %) referenced the title, and two (4 %) mentioned
the full text (Table 10).
Instructor inuence
In addition to the themes that emerged from responses to specic
questions, an additional theme arose throughout the interviews: the
inuence that instructors have in shaping students’ information-seeking
behaviors. More than half of our participants (n = 28, 56 %) made
comments that were coded at this theme. The theme arose in some of the
Table 3
Select themes from participant responses to “Why did you pick this article?” (full
list of themes in Appendix C).
Theme Participant
count and
percentage
Theme description Illustrative quote(s)
Content n = 39
78 %
Participant
described the
content of the article
when explaining
why they chose it
“I chose this one
because they’re
talking about teacher
and child relationship
quality. Basically, it
really depends on the
teacher and the
relationship with the
child.”
“I think that would
provide the
information on how
boys and girls are
conditioned to play
with G.I. Joe or
Barbie.”
Contrasting or
comparative
focus
n = 32
64 %
Article chosen
because it was either
different from or
similar to other
articles the
participant picked
“So they’re both
looking at the same
thing, but they’ll have
slightly different
things to talk about.
So I would use both of
these essentially to
provide more
evidence for that.”
“The content touches
on a different
perspective than the
other one, so it kind of
rounds out the
argument.”
Connection n = 31
62 %
Article chosen
because participant
had a personal
connection to it,
found it particularly
interesting, or it
reinforced their
thoughts or beliefs
on the topic
“[They studied]
immigrant student[s]
in a wealthy white
neighborhood, or
school, and that
reminded me of
myself. I used to live
in the poor side of L.
A., and then I was
fortunate enough to
leave that, and move
into Northern L.A.
Santa Clarita. Which
was a pretty white
neighborhood, and I
feel like I can relate to
it because it did have
a positive impact on
me. I don’t think I
would be in college if I
didn’t move out of L.
A…Yeah, so I feel like
that. I can relate to it.”
“This one, it had some
truth in it.”
Authoritative,
data-driven
source
n = 30
60 %
Article chosen
because it was
perceived as being
scientic,
quantitative,
qualitative, data-
driven, etc.; includes
positive perceptions
of the methods,
specically the
sample size, or that
“The description of
the study sounds like
it was a large sample
group that was taken
from varying samples.
So it sounded more
legit, scientically.”
“I was looking at it
because they had
statistical data. They
had numbers and
Table 3 (continued )
Theme Participant
count and
percentage
Theme description Illustrative quote(s)
the article was peer-
reviewed
dates and that sort of
information, so I
would use that to get
the statistical data
analysis of the
situation.”
Similarity to
prompt
n = 26
52 %
Article chosen
because it was
similar to the
assignment prompt
or the keywords
from the prompt
“Well that literally t
the prompt about as
good as I could nd.”
“Well, I read the title,
and it seemed like it
had a lot of what this
prompt has to do with.
And I read the
[abstract], and it has a
lot of key words that
are in the search, so I
picked that one.”
Scope n = 24
48 %
Article chosen either
because of its
broadness or its
specicity
“This particular
article was general
enough to t within
the criteria. A number
of the articles were
about Latino children
or Chinese children,
and that doesn’t t,
because we’re not
looking at just one
ethnic group that’s
immigrated.”
“It was talking
specically. Cuz the
other ones were kind
of vague and it was
just kind of all over
the place, but this one
was talking about one
specic study they did
with 87 kids.”
S.P.C. Dahlen and K. Hanson
The Journal of Academic Librarianship 49 (2023) 102713
7
previous analyses related to the evaluation and selection of information.
As we saw in Table 6, 20 participants (40 %) noted the impact that in-
structors have on their considerations of currency, and 14 participants
(28 %) mentioned instructors inuencing their standards for credibility
(Table 8). Taking those comments and all others throughout the in-
terviews that were coded at “instructor inuence,” we were able to
dene two primary sub-themes. These sub-themes attempted to distin-
guish between participants indicating a desire to follow specic re-
quirements given by instructors, or indicating that the instructors’
values or priorities had been internalized by participants. Twenty par-
ticipants (40 %) made comments focused on meeting requirements,
while 16 (32 %) demonstrated some adoption of the instructors’ values
or priorities. Numerous participants made comments that fell under both
of these themes, suggesting that even students who have internalized the
values to some extent are aware of the specic requirements of an
assignment. Only two participants (4 %) had comments coded at the
nal sub-theme, which was related to instructors teaching students how
to nd information (Table 11).
Discussion
Search process
Pages of results
With regard to how often students go beyond the rst page of search
results, we were able to compare participant responses to the search
behaviors recorded by the screencasts, giving our study a different
Table 4
Where participants found information driving their article selection.
Theme Participant
count and
percentage
Theme description Illustrative quote(s)
Abstract n = 24
48 %
Participant mentioned
the abstract or the
information therein as a
reason for choosing the
article
“When I read the
[abstract], this provided
me with the information
that I was looking [for].”
“[The abstract] kind of
just describes what I’m
looking for and actual
information that I would
want from it, so I don’t
have to read the whole
thing to nd out that it’s
not going to help me.”
Title n = 14
28 %
Participant mentioned
the title or the
information therein as a
reason for choosing the
article
“Well, the title was
very—it just seemed like
it picked up [on] what I
was searching for…The
title caught my eye.”
“I’m being completely
honest. Every time I say,
‘Yeah, I have two
[articles chosen],’ I have
not read the [abstract]
yet [chuckles].”
Table 5
Importance of date of publication as a consideration for article selection.
Theme Participant
count and
percentage
Theme description Illustrative quote(s)
Date of
publication
important
n = 19
38 %
Date of publication
was an important
consideration when
choosing their
articles
“I considered that a
lot, just because I
know that’s what
teachers ask for. At
least a lot my teachers
have asked for fairly
recent articles. So, I
always look at the date
when it was
published.”
Date of
publication
somewhat
important
n = 19
38 %
Date of publication
was a somewhat
important
consideration when
choosing their
articles
“It was pretty
important, but not the
most important
aspect. From a scale or
an order, I’d say it was
maybe the third or
fourth factor.”
Date of
publication
not very
important
n = 12
24 %
Date of publication
was not a very
important
consideration when
choosing their
articles
“None. I never really
take that into
consideration.”
Table 6
Other themes related to publication currency.
Theme Participant
count and
percentage
Theme description Illustrative quote(s)
Instructor
inuence on
currency
n = 20
40 %
Participant noted that
their selection of
publication date is
informed by instructor
guidance or
specications of a
particular assignment
“Well just from what
professors have told
us, is that it is better
when you have
things that are more
recent because they
are just more
relevant.”
“There are some
classes that are very
specic. When
you’re doing your
search, they have to
be from 2000 to
present.”
Publication
date
informed by
topic
n = 13
26 %
Participant indicated
that the publication
dates they consider
acceptable depend on
the topic they are
researching
“It would depend
upon what I was
writing about.”
“Like last semester I
was in a class that
required having
research from not
more than two years
ago. And it made
sense. I mean, that
was a progressive
time in technology
where we learned
more and more and
there are certain
things that are said in
articles that weren’t
said 20 years ago.”
Mix older and
newer
publication
dates
n = 13
26 %
Participant mentioned
intentionally
incorporating articles
with a range of
publication dates
“I like to get a
mixture of things
that are recent and
things that are
older.”
“I like to look at
older ones just to see
what they’ve come
up with, and then…I
always want to
compare it to
something new just
to see if they have
added more
information to the
newer version than
not.”
S.P.C. Dahlen and K. Hanson
The Journal of Academic Librarianship 49 (2023) 102713
8
perspective than others that have looked at this question. Their reported
behavior corresponded quite closely with their actual behavior in the
experimental setting. The number of participants who went past the rst
page of results was recorded for each of our three search tools, and it was
48 % for one version of Summon, 50 % for the other version of Summon,
and 22 % for Social Sciences Abstracts (the lower number for the latter
can be explained by the frequent instances of SSA providing only one
page of results). As indicated in Table 1, 48 % of participants reported
that they often or always go beyond the rst page and 26 % said that
they sometimes do. The close correspondence of these numbers suggests
that participants were able to accurately report on their search behav-
iors in this case, and we hope that accuracy extends to their responses to
our other questions, some of which cannot be corroborated by
observations.
How far into the results list students go when searching is a behavior
that has been previously addressed by a number of studies, which
typically found that students, from a wide variety of majors and years of
study, are not likely to go beyond the rst page of results (Asher et al.,
2013; Cross & Gullikson, 2020; Georgas, 2014; Gewirtz et al., 2014;
Hamlett & Georgas, 2019; Holman, 2011). The participants in our study
did not conform to this behavior, and many were sufciently cognizant
of their tendencies to describe the circumstances that prompt them to
visit subsequent pages or to try a different approach. Many students
expressed awareness of decreasing relevance of results farther into the
results list, though some took the absence of relevant results on page one
as a directive to start a new search while others saw it as cause to go a
few pages deeper into the results.
Our previous research found that going beyond the rst page of
search results was not correlated with selecting better sources (Dahlen
et al., 2020), so librarians may not need to encourage or discourage this
behavior. This nding does have implications for database providers as
it highlights the value of search algorithms that successfully rank rele-
vance: If students focus on the rst few pages of results, this is where the
most relevant results should be if students are to be retained in the
database (the second most frequent strategy for dealing with a failed
search was searching elsewhere; see Table 2). The importance of search
algorithms is further highlighted by the 16 % of participants who listed
the prominence of an article in the results list as one of their reasons for
selecting it (Table 3). The value of search algorithms is unlikely to be
news to most librarians, who have experience searching databases that
have relevance ranking that produces logical results and those that do
not. In the rare case when a database is available from multiple vendors,
we can vote with our dollars for the option with better relevance
ranking.
Strategies for failed searches
Asking students not how they search, but rather what they do when
their initial search fails, was our distinctive approach for diving deeper
Table 7
Select themes from participant responses to “To what extent did you consider the
credibility of the authors or the publication when you chose your articles?” (full
list of themes in Appendix C).
Theme Participant
count and
percentage
Theme description Illustrative quote(s)
Ensured
article was
scholarly
n = 27
54 %
Participant noted that
they made sure that
the articles they
selected were
scholarly or peer-
reviewed
“I wouldn’t pick
anything that’s not
peer reviewed or a
scholarly article.”
“Well, I limit to
scholarly and peer
reviewed, the type
from journals or
something that can be
recognized, or I can
always Google and
nd out if it’s legit.
One part of these
search engines
[library databases],
they give you good
stuff and credible stuff
that I always make
sure I lter to link the
full text and the
scholarly peer review.
Because that’s known
to be academic, and
you can use it, and
you’re not like going
uncited [chuckles].
Yeah, I always look
for that, especially
that.”
Peer-reviewed n = 19
38 %
Participant
specically mentioned
peer review as a
consideration for
credibility
“It was very important
because they do have
to be scholarly
articles, and they do
have to be peer
reviewed. And, this,
for me, it proves that
it has been
scientically studied.”
“They’re peer
reviewed. I don’t have
a degree—who am I to
challenge something
that is already peer
reviewed?”
Did not
consider
author or
journal
n = 15
30 %
Participant noted that
they did not
specically consider
the credibility of the
author or the journal,
though they may have
used other criteria for
evaluating the
credibility of the
source
“I’m not familiar with
the scholarly
people…The last
thing I look at, if
ever.”
“When I rst started
looking at them, I
didn’t really think of
that. All I knew was,
‘Oh, academic
journal, so it should
be scholarly
enough.’”
Considered
journal
n = 12
24 %
Participant mentioned
considering the
journal where the
chosen article was
published
“I’d much rather trust
something like the
American
Sociological
Association than Fox
News. So that’s
denitely more
credible because
they’ve got credit in
their research behind
Table 7 (continued )
Theme Participant
count and
percentage
Theme description Illustrative quote(s)
the name.”
“The publication I
considered a lot, I did
not spend time
looking at the
authors.”
Limited
search to
scholarly
sources
n = 8
16 %
Participant ensured
that chosen articles
were credible by using
database limiters to
narrow search to
scholarly or peer-
reviewed articles
“I kind of rely on this
one right here
[scholarly lter] just
to make sure they’re
scholarly at least.”
S.P.C. Dahlen and K. Hanson
The Journal of Academic Librarianship 49 (2023) 102713
9
into how students behave when the most obvious or simple strategy does
not yield desirable results. Encouragingly, 62 % of respondents said that
they would modify their search terms, demonstrating an awareness of
the importance of search terms and a certain degree of persistence. This
nding departs from the observations of Cross and Gullikson (2020),
who found that undergraduate and graduate students were unlikely to
change their search terms even when they were not yielding the desired
results. The second most commonly mentioned strategy, however, was
searching elsewhere, with 44 % of participants listing that as an
approach after a failed search, though not necessarily their rst action.
Only 16 % of participants mentioned using features of the search
interface to address a failed search. This is noteworthy because our
screencasts show that 72 % of participants used the database facets
during their searching (Dahlen et al., 2020). This indicates that most
students are aware of facets and use them, but do not view them as a way
to remediate a failed search. Facets can in fact be very useful in nar-
rowing search results and improving their relevance, particularly when
the initial search is too broad. Drawing students’ attention to the utility
of facets not just for format or date, but also for subject, may give them
an additional strategy for persisting when a search fails.
A disappointing 14 % of participants said that they would ask for
help when unable to nd the results they were looking for, and of those,
the majority (72 %) mentioned seeking assistance from their instructor.
While instructors can be extremely helpful and are the subject matter
experts, we librarians have expertise specically in nding information.
Reference desk transactions have been declining for years (Bandyo-
padhyay & Boyd-Byrnes, 2016), and so nding new ways to promote our
reference services to students may help with their awareness of the li-
brary as a go-to resource for information needs.
Evaluation and selection of information
Reasons for choosing articles
One of our unique contributions to the literature on information-
seeking behavior is an in-depth look at how students justify the sour-
ces they select following a library database search. There was a wide
variety of reasons participants provided for choosing their articles, and
for most, more than one reason was mentioned. While it may not be
surprising that the most common theme was “content” (78 %), it is
worth noting that many of the responses coded at this theme did not
demonstrate awareness of how that content related to their overall in-
formation goals. A typical response took the form of “I chose this article
because it talks about x” rather than “I chose this article because it talks
about x, and x is an important element of the topic” or “x would help me
answer the research question” or “I can use x to make a particular point.”
It may be that these considerations were too far removed from the
consciousness of participants in this experimental setting, or that par-
ticipants had a tacit awareness of how the articles’ content was related
to their overall goals. Being able to articulate this relationship, however,
could be useful to students as a preliminary step toward writing from
sources, rather than sentences. This is a concept articulated by Howard
et al. (2010), whose work with the Citation Project found that students
citing information in their papers tended to write from individual sen-
tences in a source, using a direct quote or paraphrase, rather than
summarizing the information from a source. Awareness of this tendency
can help librarians provide targeted instruction to students about
incorporating information from sources into their papers. For example,
students might benet from explicit instruction on the various roles that
information from sources might play in their assignments, including
establishing the context or background, dening terms, making a point,
illustrating an example, supporting an interpretation, etc.
Encouragingly, though, some participants did list reasons for
choosing articles that demonstrated an emerging recognition of how
those articles might t into the bigger picture of the assignment. Sixty-
four percent of participants selected articles because of their contrast-
ing or comparative focus in relation to their other sources. This shows
that students are not choosing articles in isolation, but rather looking for
sources that complement each other. We interpret this as a precursor to
synthesizing information from sources, a skill that proves challenging
for many students (Bury, 2016; Dahlen & Leuzinger, 2020; Eastman
et al., 2018; Lundstrom et al., 2015; Rosenblatt, 2010). Additionally, 28
% of participants noted that they chose an article because they could
imagine how they would use it in their paper, a promising indicator that
at least some students have the bigger picture in mind, and a number
that might be higher if the participants had actually been required to
write a paper.
We have varying interpretations of participants listing their
connection to an article as a reason for selecting it (62 %). In some cases,
those connections seemed benign or positive, such as when participants
mentioned nding an article particularly interesting or relatable. On the
other hand, this theme also captured some participants seemingly
Table 8
Other themes related to credibility.
Theme Participant
count and
percentage
Theme description Illustrative quote(s)
Trusting the
tool for
credibility
n = 16
32 %
Participant trusted
that the articles
chosen were credible,
either because they
were found through a
library database (n =
5; 10 %) or because
the database labeled
them as scholarly,
peer-reviewed, or
academic journal (n
= 13; 26 %)
“One part of these
search engines, they
give you good stuff and
credible stuff that I
always make sure I
lter to link the full
text and the scholarly
peer review. Because
that’s known to be
academic, and you can
use it.”
“I always click on the
scholarly ones. Because
if they made it on
there, they have to be
real, right [laughter]?”
Instructor
inuence
on
credibility
n = 14
28 %
Participant
mentioned their
instructors, major, or
assignments as
inuencing their
criteria for credibility
“Ever since I joined my
major they’re strict on
scholarly articles. I got
used to it.”
“I was just going for
scholarly journals. So
that’s one thing that
I’ve been taught to do
when doing research
and to nd credible
sources.”
Utility of
non-
scholarly
sources
n = 3
6 %
Participant brought
up scenarios in which
non-scholarly sources
can be useful while
recognizing their
limitations for
credibility
“if I’m doing a research
paper, and I would
start only scholarly, but
after you get a good
idea of what the - in my
particular case - what
the theorists and what
people are thinking
within my major, then
I’ll look on Google.
Then I’ll go through
and see if I can’t nd
little snippets of
information here and
there. So I don’t think
scholarly is the only
way to go, but if you’re
starting—you
shouldn’t start any
other way. Unless you
have no idea then
that’s when you
Wikipedia it and read it
and say, ‘alright.’”
S.P.C. Dahlen and K. Hanson
The Journal of Academic Librarianship 49 (2023) 102713
10
gravitating toward articles that resonated with their thoughts or beliefs
on the topic. This behavior can be understood as a manifestation of
conrmation bias, something that educators hope to combat by fostering
information literacy and critical thinking skills. While this proclivity
may be too pervasive to fully remedy through library instruction, a
discussion of conrmation bias in our instruction sessions may help
students resist gravitating only toward sources that reinforce existing
beliefs.
A majority of participants (60 %) had reasons for choosing their
articles that were related to their authoritative or data-driven nature.
Many of these students specically mentioned the method that the au-
thors had used (e.g. surveys, interviews), the sample size, the quantity or
type of data (e.g. qualitative, quantitative), or that it had been peer-
reviewed. It was encouraging to see that students were attentive to
these considerations, even if they were sometimes over simplied (e.g.
bigger sample size = better study). Smaller numbers of participants
mentioned the journal (12 %) or author (8 %) as a factor in their choice,
or the source’s use of theory (8 %). Many of these considerations align
with the priorities of the SBS faculty, who put heavy emphasis on the
importance of scholarly sources, along with attentiveness to method and
theory.
We did not ask participants where they found the information that
led them to choose their articles, but some volunteered that they had
made their choices based on the title (28 %) or the abstract (48 %). The
importance of these elds is consonant with the ndings of Cross and
Gullikson (2020), who observed undergraduate and graduate students
rapidly scanning results lists for titles and dates, and then reading ab-
stracts of sources that seemed sufciently interesting. Students who
choose sources based on the title alone, however, may be missing some
relevant results. This is particularly notable given that 52 % of our re-
spondents mentioned choosing articles based on seeing key words that
were similar to those in the prompt. If students are scanning titles for
words that match the terms they use to describe their topic, relevant
articles described using different terminology are less likely to be
noticed. Databases that include a few lines of the text under the title in
the results list may help students see relevance when it is not immedi-
ately apparent from the title, and bringing students’ attention to this
pitfall in instruction sessions may be useful.
Currency
The date of publication was described as an important or somewhat
important consideration for most participants (76 %) when asked.
Similarly, previous studies have found publication date to be a consid-
eration when choosing sources for students from a wide variety of years
of study and majors (Cross & Gullikson, 2020; Head & Eisenberg, 2010b;
Komissarov & Murray, 2016). Some of our participants also brought up
currency unprompted in response to the prior question about how they
chose their articles. In that context, 30 % of participants mentioned the
recent publication date as a reason they chose an article, and 24 % noted
that a chosen article had an older publication date but that they had
decided to select it anyway. This demonstrates a widespread awareness
of currency as one standard by which information is evaluated. While
certain comments reected an oversimplied view that newer always
equals better, a more nuanced understanding of currency was evidenced
by some participants in their justications for choosing articles with
older publication dates (24 %), their focus on the topic of research to
inform the publication date (26 %) and their strategic mixing of older
and newer sources (26 %). The average publication date of articles
selected by our participants was about ten years prior to the time when
students conducted their searches (Dahlen & Hanson, 2017), which re-
ects the selection of a range of older and newer sources.
Credibility
In retrospect, we realize that the wording of our question on credi-
bility could have been improved to better capture a wider range of
participant sentiment. We asked, “To what extent did you consider the
Table 9
Themes from participant responses to “To what extent did you consider the relevance of the article to your topic when you chose your articles?”.
Theme Participant count
and percentage
Theme description Illustrative quote(s)
Top
consideration
n = 30
60 %
Relevance was one of the participant’s primary considerations
when choosing articles
“I think that was the most important thing…Stuff that was clearly
related to the topic I was searching for. I thought those were the best
ones.”
“The whole thing. I always make sure, because if it’s not relevant, how
are you going to write it? You’re just going to have an article that you’re
just reading for fun, it’s nothing that’s going to help you out in your
paper. So I always make sure. That’s what I do with my articles, I make
sure it’s relevant to the topic, like 100 % relevant.”
Different angles n = 13
26 %
Participant mentioned nding articles with different angles,
perspectives, or factors of a topic while still being relevant to
the main research question
“I wanted it to be as accurate as possible, but I denitely did open my
viewpoints to depict different scenarios as far as who was being
portrayed in the article.”
“Usually when I’m writing a paper—I probably shouldn’t get away
with—but I usually get away with taking the topic and making it more
specic. And sometimes I’m just really interested in one area of that
topic, and I’ll say ‘I know that there’s something to be said about this. I
know there’s something to be said about that.’ But sometimes I’ll be
searching around and I’ll nd something really interesting and I’ll say
‘Well, I want to incorporate that into my paper. Let me do that, and let
me nd something else to compare it with, and we’ll go from there.’ So
usually relevance is kind of a perspective in my stuff.”
Key words n = 12
24 %
Participant evaluated relevance by the presence of certain key
words (including from the prompt) in the article’s title,
abstract, or full text
“I wanted to see the keywords in the prompt in my titles every time I
chose them.”
“That was the most important part, just making sure in the [abstract],
the key words matched, and they were actually related, not vaguely
distantly related.”
Interest also
considered
n = 2
4 %
Participant mentioned that articles should be interesting in
addition to relevant
“They’re relevant and they’re interesting I guess, just so that I could
actually read it and I could have something to talk about in the paper…
Because if I just pick a random one for whatever reason and I read it and
I’m not interested in it, then I’m not going to be able to talk about it.”
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11
credibility of the authors or the publication when you chose your arti-
cles?” Some participant responses reect a very literal interpretation of
the question, stating that they did not consider the author or the journal.
Other participants gave broader answers that described their consider-
ations of source credibility, even when that did not specically include
the author or journal. A more expansive phrasing of the question would
likely have captured additional detail regarding participants’ credibility
considerations.
With that limitation in mind, we can still say that credibility was a
consideration for most of our participants when selecting their sources.
Eighty-eight percent of participants said that they considered credibility
in one way or another. Of the remaining participants, 6 % noted that
they hadn’t considered credibility yet but would if they were going to
move forward with these sources for an assignment. This complements
the ndings of Bonnet et al. (2013), Komissarov and Murray (2016), and
Twait (2005) who document attentiveness to source credibility among
students from a variety of majors and years of study, and aligns with our
previous nding that these students overall chose very authoritative
sources (Dahlen & Hanson, 2017).
While only 16 % of our participants mentioned (unprompted) their
use of a database lter to limit their search to scholarly sources, 72 %
were observed to use this lter in one or more of their searches. Other
participant comments indicated that even when the lter was not
employed, they were still attentive to the database labels of “peer-
reviewed,” “scholarly,” or “academic journal.” Similar to the ndings of
Asher et al. (2013) regarding undergraduates from various years of
study and disciplines trusting library search tools, 32 % percent of our
participants noted that they trusted these database labels, or in some
Table 10
Sites for evaluating relevance.
Theme Participant
count and
percentage
Theme description Illustrative quote(s)
Abstract n = 10
20 %
Participant mentioned
the abstract as a site for
evaluating relevance
“Yeah, and I go to the
abstract and see if it
talks about what I’m
looking for.”
“Just from the [abstract]
- I did not read the full
text - but from the
[abstract], it gave me a
pretty good idea of what
it was about, and it was
really relevant to the
prompt.”
Title n = 9
18 %
Participant mentioned
the title as a site for
evaluating relevance
“A lot, because I was
focusing on the title. The
title usually can tell me
what my topic is on,
because of how there’s
some key words in
there.”
Full text n = 2
4 %
Participant mentioned
looking at some amount
of the full text to get a
sense of relevance
“Well, the title itself is
not enough. I feel like I
always have to read at
least the abstract. If that
might not be enough, I’ll
open up the document
and make sure - maybe
scan through it, maybe
the titles or the subtitles,
just to make sure that I
might link it to the topic.
I might have to maybe
read it all or just scan
through it to see if it’s
something that I might
link to the topic or if it’s
a good topic that I can
add on to it…”
Table 11
Sub-themes within “instructor inuence” theme.
Theme Participant
count and
percentage
Theme description Illustrative quote(s)
Meet
requirements
n = 20
40 %
Participant showed
awareness of the need
to meet specic
requirements set forth
by an instructor or an
assignment
“It’s basically what a
lot of professors ask
for, too, are more up-
to-date articles. They
don’t mind if you
slide a few older
things in there, but
they pretty much like
up-to-date articles
and do request it in
their syllabus and
whatnot or their
scoring page for any
particular project.”
“Unless I was told
that it had to be a
scholarly article,
then I would look at
the article other than
that. It doesn’t
matter.”
Internalize
instructor
priorities
n = 16
32 %
Participant’s
comments indicated
that they had
internalized or
adopted the values or
priorities their
instructors have
around nding,
evaluating, or using
information
“That’s [publication
date] very important.
Maybe because
professors have
mentioned the
importance of that.
However, I know,
and some professors
mentioned, even
some stuff that you
nd that may not be
as current might be
very useful
information - that’s
something I have
noticed as well.”
“Well, I made sure
that they were
scholarly/peer
reviewed journals.
That’s one thing I
made sure that I
checked off. It wasn’t
just general
information that I
was focusing on - no
books, no nothing. I
was just going for
scholarly journals. So
that’s one thing that
I’ve been taught to
do when doing
research and to nd
credible sources.”
Instruction on
nding
information
n = 2
4 %
Participant
mentioned receiving
instruction on
searching for
information
“My professors told
me to use this
[database].”
“That’s how we’re
taught by the
teachers, that if…
very broad articles
pop up, they want
you to narrow the
topic down to more
keywords to t, so
the right articles pop
up for you.”
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The Journal of Academic Librarianship 49 (2023) 102713
12
cases (10 %), trusted the presence of the article in a library database, to
determine credibility. While database lters and labels are useful fea-
tures, librarians know from experience that they are sometimes mis-
applied, and we hope that students are not dependent on them at the
expense of applying their own criteria to determine source credibility.
Relevance
Perhaps unsurprisingly, and consistent with other studies of un-
dergraduates from various majors and years of study (Komissarov &
Murray, 2016; List et al., 2016; Twait, 2005), every participant said that
they considered relevance when selecting their articles, and 60 % noted
that it was a top consideration. It follows, then, that many of the themes
in this category reiterate those that emerged when we asked students
their reasons for choosing articles. Twenty-six percent described a
strategy of nding relevant articles with different angles on the topic,
which echoes some of the reasons given for choosing specic articles,
namely, choosing articles with a contrasting or comparative focus, and
choosing articles based on their perspective. This could be interpreted as
a promising counterpoint to the trend described above of participants
selecting articles that they connected with, an inclination that raised
concerns about conrmation bias. Another theme that reinforces nd-
ings discussed above is that students’ evaluation of relevance may over-
rely on the presence of key words from the prompt (12 %), which could
result in students missing relevant information that is described using
different words or phrases. Nonetheless, our previous analysis found
that these students generally chose sources that were relevant to their
topic (Dahlen & Hanson, 2017).
Instructor inuence
A particularly notable theme that emerged throughout the in-
terviews, and that is not similarly evident elsewhere in the literature,
was the inuence that instructors have on students’ information-seeking
behaviors. This theme arose in a number of different contexts, with 56 %
of participants making comments coded at this theme. While asking for
help was not the most frequently mentioned strategy for dealing with
failed searches (14 %), of those who did mention it, the majority said
they would seek help from their instructor (71 %). This is consistent with
ndings at other institutions that looked at undergraduate and graduate
students in various years and areas of study (Bonnet et al., 2013; Cata-
lano, 2013; Thomas et al., 2017; Vinyard et al., 2017). When asked
whether they considered the currency of their sources, 40 % of our
participants noted that their criteria are informed by instructor guidance
or the specications of a particular assignment. Similarly, 28 % of par-
ticipants indicated that instructors inuenced their considerations for
source credibility.
Because of the prevalence of this theme, we divided it into sub-
themes in an attempt to parse whether the participants were merely
trying to meet the requirements specied by assignments (40 %) or
whether they had internalized the priorities of their instructors (32 %).
There is overlap between these two sub-themes, which we interpret as
evidence that even students who have adopted their instructors’ prior-
ities are still attentive to the specics of their assignment prompts. We
suspect that the number of students who have internalized the
information-seeking values of their instructors is greater than 32 %,
considering that the search exercise that participants completed did not
specify requirements regarding currency or credibility, yet they were
still mentioned as important considerations (recall that they were not
specically asked about inuences on their source selection criteria,
which could have yielded additional responses at this theme).
There is not a great deal of research about instructor inuence on
information literacy behaviors and dispositions, though Komissarov and
Murray (2016) found that students are more likely to use library data-
bases if their instructor recommended them, and Twait (2005) described
faculty inuencing student source selection (both studies focused on
undergraduates from various disciplines and years of study). Many of
the comments from our participants that evidence their adoption of
instructor priorities indicate that an instructor’s repeated emphasis on
the importance of something like currency or credibility can lead stu-
dents to recognize that value and transfer it to other contexts. This has
implications for instructors, who may or may not realize that explicitly
promoting their priorities for source evaluation is more impactful than
any implicit endorsement of source types made in their assignment
prompts (e.g. your paper must cite ve scholarly sources).
The implication for librarians is that our efforts would be well-
directed toward turning instructors into information literacy advo-
cates. Our interaction with students is often limited to single instruction
sessions in which we try to cover a substantial amount of material. Not
one participant in our study made a comment about librarians having
inuenced their information-seeking practices or values, even though
64 % of them had attended library instruction sessions or had a research
consultation with a librarian. Instructors, in contrast, have frequent in-
teractions with students, have the chance to develop a rapport with
them, and have the authority to espouse the values of their discipline.
Catalano (2013) has recommended training faculty who advise graduate
students in advanced search techniques, and we propose that the same
approach could be fruitful for faculty working with undergraduates.
Considering the number of students that instructors teach every se-
mester, converting faculty to informed information literacy advocates
could have a substantial impact on students.
This is not to minimize the role of librarians in fostering helpful
information-seeking behaviors in students, but rather to suggest that we
ramp up our faculty outreach efforts. Armed with the information that
instructors are the ones poised to make the biggest impact on student
behavior, librarians could encourage faculty to take a more active role in
reinforcing the information-related values of their discipline. This could
include librarians providing faculty with sample language for their
assignment prompts describing the reasoning for requiring scholarly
sources published within a particular date range. Librarians could
engage instructors during library instruction sessions in dialogue about
the practices and priorities of their eld. Instructors at new faculty
orientation could receive a handout on “how to be an information lit-
eracy advocate.” Disciplinary faculty can also deeply engage with in-
formation literacy through assessment projects (Dahlen & Leuzinger,
2020) and leadership institutes (Schlesselman-Tarango & Becerra,
2022). Some faculty have expressed interest in incorporating more in-
formation literacy into their instruction (Bury, 2016), and this has been
accomplished through team teaching (Bharuthram et al., 2019) and
train-the-trainer models (Lacy & Hamlett, 2021). The possibilities are
many, but the unifying element is to convince instructors of the
importance of their role in instilling values that lead to information-
seeking behaviors that students will apply beyond a particular
assignment.
The population that we studied was limited to a single major at our
institution. While this may be viewed as a limitation, it allowed us to see
how one academic department has passed along their information-
related priorities to students. Although this was not our initial inten-
tion in selecting this major, we see throughout the interview data in-
dications that students have internalized the priorities of the SBS faculty.
This goes beyond the comments that were coded at this sub-theme to
include students’ pervasive attentiveness to nding current, scholarly
sources. Method and theory, which also receive attention in SBS, also
arose unprompted, though to a lesser extent, in participants’ reasons for
choosing articles. A comparison group would be necessary to determine
whether these same considerations would emerge from students in a
department with different information-related values, and this would be
a direction for further research. As librarians who have worked with this
major, however, we believe that we heard the particular priorities of this
department’s faculty echoed in the words of their students.
S.P.C. Dahlen and K. Hanson
The Journal of Academic Librarianship 49 (2023) 102713
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Conclusion
This case study has explored the information-seeking and selection
behaviors of students by interviewing them during and after a search
exercise and identifying recurring themes that emerged from their re-
ections on their process. This adds an additional perspective to our
previous analyses of this population, which were quantitative in nature
and focused on student preferences for search tools, the quality of
sources they choose (Dahlen & Hanson, 2017), the inuence of search
interfaces on student behavior, and the relationship between search
behaviors and source quality (Dahlen et al., 2020). It also expands our
collective understanding of how students think about searching for,
evaluating, and selecting information by employing a novel interview
approach designed to elicit deeper exploration of areas that have pre-
viously been addressed in the literature. Our ndings have led us to
identify the following implications for database design, information
literacy instruction, and relationships with non-library faculty.
Database design
If database vendors wish to retain students in their products, thereby
increasing usage statistics and maintaining library customers, they must
be attentive to user-centered design. Given students’ tendency to change
search tools when relevant results are not evident in the rst few pages
and to somewhat supercially evaluate relevance based on the presence
of key words in the title, ne-tuning database algorithms for relevance
ranking should be given the utmost consideration. An additional way to
engage users is to provide a few lines of the abstract on the search results
page so that students do not miss relevant sources when skimming the
results.
Information literacy instruction
Our ndings point to a number of take-aways for instruction. Source
evaluation has long been a pillar of information literacy instruction, and
should continue to be, even though database labels and lters can
automate some of the process. Reliance on such database features may
be expedient, but students need their own source evaluation criteria to
apply outside of the library domain and even within it, as we know our
tools sometimes fail to appropriately categorize information.
In teaching students to select sources, it may prove helpful to have
explicit conversations about how to determine when sources are rele-
vant and useful to the information need. Helping students understand
the different roles that information from sources might play in their
paper (background, denition, evidence, illustration, etc.) may allow
students to be strategic when selecting sources, keeping in mind the
context of how the information will be applied in their assignment. We
can remind students to look beyond titles when selecting sources, and to
not scan results lists for the presence of their search terms to the
exclusion of related terms. We can also educate students about conr-
mation bias, helping them recognize and counter this tendency in the
classroom and beyond.
Finally, if students do not automatically gravitate toward the library
as a place to meet their information needs, we need to continue to
promote ourselves and our services. The classroom is just one site for this
type of promotion, but it can be a benecial one as we connect with
students through our instruction and prove ourselves to be a valuable
resource that can be revisited when information needs arise.
Relationships with instructors
Our nal take-away is the need to build relationships with non-
library faculty. While this is not a new entreaty, ours has a particular
focus, which is turning faculty into information literacy advocates.
Faculty advocates do not merely give up one of their class sessions for
library instruction, but also reinforce the points made throughout the
semester. They try to instill the information-related values of their
discipline not just by requesting certain source types in their assignment
prompts, but by ensuring that students understand why these source
types are valued and when exceptions can be made. While librarians
must continue to engage students directly whenever possible, we can
recognize our limitations and invest outreach efforts in the group that
has the most sustained contact with students and thus the best oppor-
tunity to inspire students to develop lifelong habits of mind.
Funding
This work was supported by a Faculty Incentive Grant from CSUMB.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Sarah P.C. Dahlen: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal anal-
ysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing,
Funding acquisition. Kathlene Hanson: Investigation, Writing – orig-
inal draft, Writing – review & editing.
Declaration of competing interest
None.
Appendix A. Search prompts
Each participant was assigned one of the following tasks:
1. You are writing a research paper on the effects of children’s toys on gender stereotypes. Find 2 of the best quality articles to use.
OR
2. You are writing a research paper on the factors that affect the academic achievement of children of immigrants. Find 2 of the best quality articles
on this topic.
Appendix B. Interview questions
After participant selected articles in each search tool:
● Why did you pick this article?
● Would you feel condent using this article as a source for an actual assignment?
After participant concluded searches in all three search tools:
● To what extent did you consider the date of publication when you chose your articles?
S.P.C. Dahlen and K. Hanson
The Journal of Academic Librarianship 49 (2023) 102713
14
● Would that also be your approach if this research were for a class?
● To what extent did you consider the credibility of the authors or the publication when you chose your articles?
● Would that also be your approach if this research were for a class?
● To what extent did you consider the relevance of the article to your topic when you chose your articles?
● Would that also be your approach if this research were for a class?
● When searching for articles for a class assignment, how often would you say that you go beyond the rst page of search results?
● What do you do when you’re not getting the results you hoped for?
Appendix C. Full results tables
For those results tables longer than ve rows, only the rst few rows of the table appear in the text, with the full tables (including all themes) here in
Appendix C.
Table 2
Themes from participant responses to “What do you do when you’re not getting the results you hoped for?”.
Theme Participant count
and percentage
Theme description Illustrative quote(s)
Search term
modication
n = 31
62 %
Make a change to the search terms, including
using different words or changing their order
“When I don’t get the results, I alter what I’m searching for. So like for ‘academic
achievement,’ I just think of anything else that might mean the same thing, like a
synonym of a phrase or something. But mostly just changing up the words and word
play, adding in certain phrases. Because it might trigger other articles that have the
same focus or subject, but just they’ll word it differently.”
Search elsewhere n = 22
44 %
Switch to a different search tool, including
library and non-library tools
“I would Google. Honestly, I’ll just type that into Google, and I’ll go through
whatever, trying to nd different key words or something—just get lost in Google.”
“Google Scholar as a backup. I can always go back and look in the library articles and
databases, and you can look up other things that maybe will be relevant when you
search. I know Sage Journals is another different one, other than these. Maybe use one
of those other sources.”
Use search tool
features
n = 8
16 %
Use lters, drop down menus, or other
features of the search tool
“On this site like [Summon], It gives you a certain checklist like do you want to nd
specic journals or only articles or in what language and what topic. I click those so
that kind of reduces my search.”
Ask for help n = 7
14 %
Ask an instructor or librarian for help “Usually, I’ll go back and ask a professor if I can’t really nd anything. Maybe they
might know an author in particular.”
Go to further pages
of results
n = 6
12 %
Go beyond the rst result pages “I usually go up to a couple of more pages, like two, three more pages and see. But,
usually if you keep going, they kind of slowly start going off topic.”
Satisce n = 5
10 %
Settle for a source that is “good enough” “I choose something that’s fairly close to it. If I didn’t get something exact, then I nd
something fairly close to what I’m trying to get at.”
Change format n = 4
8 %
Look for information in a different format,
especially books
“I’d go to see if there [are] any books. I haven’t used an actual book in a while, but
that would probably be my next step.”
Table 3
Themes from participant responses to “Why did you pick this article?”.
Theme Participant count
and percentage
Theme description Illustrative quote(s)
Content n = 39
78 %
Participant described the content of the article when explaining
why they chose it
“I chose this one because they’re talking about teacher and child
relationship quality. Basically, it really depends on the teacher
and the relationship with the child.”
“I think that would provide the information on how boys and girls
are conditioned to play with G.I. Joe or Barbie.”
Contrasting or
comparative focus
n = 32
64 %
Article chosen because it was either different from or similar to
other articles the participant picked
“So they’re both looking at the same thing, but they’ll have
slightly different things to talk about. So I would use both of these
essentially to provide more evidence for that.”
“The content touches on a different perspective than the other
one, so it kind of rounds out the argument.”
Connection n = 31
62 %
Article chosen because participant had a personal connection to
it, found it particularly interesting, or it reinforced their thoughts
or beliefs on the topic
“[They studied] immigrant student[s] in a wealthy white
neighborhood, or school, and that reminded me of myself. I used
to live in the poor side of L.A., and then I was fortunate enough to
leave that, and move into Northern L.A. Santa Clarita. Which was
a pretty white neighborhood, and I feel like I can relate to it
because it did have a positive impact on me. I don’t think I would
be in college if I didn’t move out of L.A…Yeah, so I feel like that. I
can relate to it.”
(continued on next page)
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Table 3 (continued )
Theme Participant count
and percentage
Theme description Illustrative quote(s)
“This one, it had some truth in it.”
Authoritative, data-
driven source
n = 30
60 %
Article chosen because it was perceived as being scientic,
quantitative, qualitative, data-driven, etc.; includes positive
perceptions of the methods, specically the sample size, or that
the article was peer-reviewed
“The description of the study sounds like it was a large sample
group that was taken from varying samples. So it sounded more
legit, scientically.”
“I was looking at it because they had statistical data. They had
numbers and dates and that sort of information, so I would use
that to get the statistical data analysis of the situation.”
Similarity to prompt n = 26
52 %
Article chosen because it was similar to the assignment prompt or
the keywords from the prompt
“Well that literally t the prompt about as good as I could nd.”
“Well, I read the title, and it seemed like it had a lot of what this
prompt has to do with. And I read the [abstract], and it has a lot of
key words that are in the search, so I picked that one.”
Scope n = 24
48 %
Article chosen either because of its broadness or its specicity “This particular article was general enough to t within the
criteria. A number of the articles were about Latino children or
Chinese children, and that doesn’t t, because we’re not looking
at just one ethnic group that’s immigrated.”
“It was talking specically. Cuz the other ones were kind of vague
and it was just kind of all over the place, but this one was talking
about one specic study they did with 87 kids.”
Population n = 23
46 %
Participant mentions some characteristic of the population
studied as a reason for choosing article
“Well the reason I picked this article is the other articles kept
specifying one ethnic background - Chinese, or Mexican, or just…
children of color. This one has two - at least two - Mexican and
East Asian immigrants. So it’s not just one specic group; it’s at
least two different ones, and it’s comparing both of them.”
Recently published n = 15
30 %
The recent publication date of the article is mentioned as one
reason for selecting it
“And it would be more useful to read a more current article, than
an article from 20 plus years ago.”
“It was published recently, in the past 10 years.”
Visualize using
article for
assignment
n = 14
28 %
Article chosen because participant can imagine how they would
use it in their paper
“I could denitely pull some useful information from this article
to apply it to the research paper.”
Older publication
chosen anyway
n = 12
24 %
Participant acknowledges that publication date is older than they
would like, but has decided to choose the article anyway
“I did choose this one article from 1999, but the title almost
perfectly stuck with what I was searching for.”
“It’s kind of old, and I feel that based off of this would maybe give
me an idea to nd a more current one. I might, might not,
depending on how many sources I need for the paper.”
Prominence of article
in results
n = 8
16 %
Participant chose article because it came up in multiple searches/
search tools, because of its high position in the results list, and/or
because it was one of the only articles in the results list
“This is the rst one that came up. I’m always wanting to pick the
rst one just to at least read it and see if I’m going down the right
path I want to keep scrolling down.”
“I kept on seeing it pop up as I was doing my search, and I started
to think, ‘Okay, well let’s see…’”
Perspective n = 7
14 %
Article chosen because of its perspective or point of view “And I really like that we get the view of 20 migrant educators
employed. It’s someone who’s there in the classroom who’s
getting their hands dirty with this information and these
problems.”
“What I like about it is, it’s from a parent’s point of view.”
Publication or
journal
n = 6
12 %
Participant mentioned the journal where the article was
published as a reason for choosing it
“Like this one comes from Ethics and Racial Studies. That sounds
pretty up in the eld, and for educational purposes and
scholarship.”
“That one I chose because it came from a very scholarly source,
The Oxford Review of Education…I’ve used a lot of other Oxford
Journal reviews, and I know that they’re very packed full of
information.”
Full text available n = 5
10 %
Participant mentions availability of full text as a consideration in
choosing an article
“I kind of landed on this one, only because the other ones that I
felt probably would be better…one is written in French. I don’t
speak French. And the other one, I would have had to get through
interlibrary loan.”
Theory n = 4
8 %
Participant mentions use of theory in the article as one reason for
choosing it
“We have to have a theory in most of our papers, and this one
went into depth with that. So, that would denitely be a good
choice, I think.”
Author n = 4
8 %
Participant mentions recognizing the author’s name as a
consideration in choosing an article, either as an incentive or a
deterrent
“This lady—I didn’t know it was the same lady, but I kind of like
when that happens because it makes me feel like—it gives a little
validity. Obviously, she’s devoted her whole career to this
research. This is her—which gives me—makes me feel condent.”
“Like usually I don’t choose like the same author twice. Like they
say, ‘Oh, you can only use three articles.’ I like to have it as varied
as possible.”
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16
Table 7
Themes from participant responses to “To what extent did you consider the credibility of the authors or the publication when you chose your articles?”.
Theme Participant count
and percentage
Theme description Illustrative quote(s)
Ensured article
was scholarly
n = 27
54 %
Participant noted that they made sure that the articles they
selected were scholarly or peer-reviewed
“I wouldn’t pick anything that’s not peer reviewed or a scholarly
article.”
“Well, I limit to scholarly and peer reviewed, the type from
journals or something that can be recognized, or I can always
Google and nd out if it’s legit. One part of these search engines
[library databases], they give you good stuff and credible stuff that
I always make sure I lter to link the full text and the scholarly
peer review. Because that’s known to be academic, and you can
use it, and you’re not like going uncited [chuckles]. Yeah, I always
look for that, especially that.”
Peer-reviewed n = 19
38 %
Participant specically mentioned peer review as a consideration
for credibility
“It was very important because they do have to be scholarly
articles, and they do have to be peer reviewed. And, this, for me, it
proves that it has been scientically studied.”
“They’re peer reviewed. I don’t have a degree—who am I to
challenge something that is already peer reviewed?”
Did not consider
author or
journal
n = 15
30 %
Participant noted that they did not specically consider the
credibility of the author or the journal, though they may have used
other criteria for evaluating the credibility of the source
“I’m not familiar with the scholarly people…The last thing I look
at, if ever.”
“When I rst started looking at them, I didn’t really think of that.
All I knew was, ‘Oh, academic journal, so it should be scholarly
enough.’”
Considered journal n = 12
24 %
Participant mentioned considering the journal where the chosen
article was published
“I’d much rather trust something like the American Sociological
Association than Fox News. So that’s denitely more credible
because they’ve got credit in their research behind the name.”
“The publication I considered a lot, I did not spend time looking at
the authors.”
Limited search to
scholarly
sources
n = 8
16 %
Participant ensured that chosen articles were credible by using
database limiters to narrow search to scholarly or peer-reviewed
articles
“I kind of rely on this one right here [scholarly lter] just to make
sure they’re scholarly at least.”
Considered author n = 3
6 %
Participant mentioned the author as a consideration when
choosing articles
“There’s one of the authors, like her name kept popping up, so I
was really tempted to choose her again, but I also wanted to look
for other authors just [for] variety.”
Considered
appearance
n = 3
6 %
In determining credibility, participant mentioned visual cues “Here, if you click on this article, what you get—yeah, that seems
good. This is like a big—this has got an abstract. It’s got an
introduction. It’s got related work, prevailing rate. It’s got a bunch
of different—it looks very smart. It looks very professional. So
that’s something I take into account.”
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