But, really, can we blame Google? The Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries (ERIAL) Project, a two-year study of the student research process involving five US universities, found that — surprise! — students have crude research skills and are typically unwilling to ask university librarians for help. The study, to be published by the American Library Association and titled "Libraries and Student Culture: What We Now Know," included interviews with students, librarians, and academics in hopes of better understanding the research habits of college kids.
Google has been called out for essentially allowing students to remain clueless about their poor searching abilities, but Steve Kolowich, a reporter for Inside Higher Ed, cuts straight to the chase. The key finding from the ERIAL studies was perhaps "the most predictable": When "it comes to finding and evaluating sources in the Internet age, students are downright lousy." But again, is anyone surprised?
Only seven out of 30 students observed at Illinois Wesleyan “conducted what a librarian might consider a reasonably well-executed search,” wrote Lynda Duke, an academic outreach librarian at Illinois Wesleyan and Andrew Asher, an anthropologist at Bucknell University who leaded the research effort. “While the interface of Google and other similar search engines might be more intuitive," explained Asher, "what’s going on behind the scenes isn’t intuitive at all, and very few students had a clear conception of how search engines work. This lack of understanding compounds the problem of building an effective search strategy." Fortunately, that can be taught, both inside and outside of a library. Also, I am hoping that the final report includes a historical perspective. Do we really think that college kids from 20 years ago were better at searching databases? At least now, most students have even easier access to a librarian thanks to online chat.
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