An Investigation on University Students' Online Information Search Strategies and Relationships with Some Educational Variables

The purpose of this study was to determine graduate and undergraduate students' online information search strategies (OISS) and their relationships with some educational variables. For this purpose, survey method was used. Participants of this research were 1006 undergraduate and graduate students from Turkey who filled the online survey. For measuring students' OISS, "Online Information Search Strategies Inventory" was utilized. The results showed that the students' level of OISS development were intermediate. The students reported most confident in "control" strategy which included skills for manipulating the online applications. Moreover, the results indicated that students were least confident about developing a skill to avoid disorientation. The causes of disorientation, even though students knew how to use Internet for searching, were investigated by examining the interactions between strategies. The findings revealed that disorientation was mostly linked to problem solving. Additionally, it was concluded that students, who were confident in metacognitive information search behavior, were also confident in other information search skills. Considering GPA, the study results showed that students with high GPA tended to have better OISS than those who had low GPA. It was also found that OISS changed with education level, major and required online information search for school work. Limitations and future studies were discussed.