著者

種市 淳子 Taneichi Junko 逸村 裕 Itsumura Hiroshi

出版者

三田図書館・情報学会

雑誌

Library and Information Science (ISSN:03734447)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.55, pp.1-23, 2006 (Released:2005-09-28)

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The World Wide Web (WWW) has had an unprecedented impact on the creation and utilization of information. As the amount of information continues to increase, it has become more difficult to select trustworthy information on the Web. This paper aims to analyze information seeking behaviors on the Web and examines the information evaluation process based on experimental research on two-year college students. The study also aims to make use of its results to enhance information users’ education in libraries in the future. First, the paper reviews previous related studies, examining studies on Web searching tendencies and those on the evaluation of Web resources in accordance with their methodologies, and pointing out the simplicity of Web searching patterns and factors that influence information evaluation. Then, in order to validate these previous studies, we examine two-year college students’ searching processes using search engines and the OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogue) by implementing the observational method and protocol analysis. In our examination, we divide the students into two groups, one that has been using the Internet for over five years and the other for under two years, and we analyze their searching behaviors. Moreover, in order to make a comparison, we also use the result of the same research on university students. We find that, 1) Web searching is a repeated behavior, repeating a simple pattern regularly. In evaluating search results, the students quickly filter out unnecessary information. 2) Experience of using search engines affects information seeking and its evaluation behaviors, which is more distinctive in students with long experience of the Internet. 3) Students have a tendency to evaluate Web resources based on visual and experimental factors, but lack skills in evaluating contents quality. 4) We find the same tendencies in university students. In conclusion, integrating all these findings, we construct a process model of information evaluation in Web searching.