JISC

Stuart Hampton-Reeves, Claire Mashiter, Jonathan Westaway,  Peter Lumsden, Helen Day, Helen Hewertson and Anna Hart (UCLAN)

Report summary

The introduction explains that while the internet and new electronic search methods have made accessing content easier, researchers and learners have had to learn to differentiate information and sort out the good research from the bad.

The aims of the study are stated as answering a series of questions about “learners, as graduate teaching assistants or as others for whom the research environment may not be familiar”. For instance: How do they access content? How do they use the research? Do they differentiate between formal, peer-reviewed content and other content they discover through the internet?

The study was based on a literature review, a survey, focus groups, recordings of student searches and case studies. The surveys were carried out at three universities as well as the University of Central Lancashire itself.

The literature review emphasises how students research methods are generally influence d by the conventions of their discipline and that it is hard to generalise outside those boundaries. Still, it’s clear that most still favour using their libraries to find research content, but also increasingly use the internet as a virtual library and first port of call for information.

The research also shows that (perhaps because of digital culture) students access research content in a more fragmentary way than in the past and that there has been a move away from depth of reading to width (ie multiple hyper-linked references are followed rather than one involved read of a book). It also questions the assumption that students are more likely to be digital literate than staff (they aren’t necessarily) and looks at the growth of social networking.

The authors surveyed over 400 students. It asked questions about how they view research, how they assess the usefulness of the content they find in what way they use it and similar. In terms of problems, many noted difficulties of access to papers, but also problems with the standards of writing within the papers and their inherent difficulty. Notably, a high percentage of students (71.5%) recognised websites as research content (more than PHD dissertations on 36%, for instance) – although they have a diverse view on what constitutes research content.

In terms of quality recognition, peer review was not rated highly by students (lower than relevance to assignments and tutor-recommendations, for instance).

The focus groups looked more closely in students in action as they researched, showing up a variety of methods, generally based on entering key phrases into search engines and library intranet services and the use of specialised research databases like Project Muse and similar before moving onto to libraries. They also uncover the obstacles students face (broadly as mentioned above, but also including lack of ICT skills). Tutors are their last port of call when hunting materials.

The next section deals with trust issues and discovers that students are generally wary of the material they find on the internet and trust journal articles  above it. Plenty haven’t heard of peer review in the social sciences disciplines, but in hard science most had. No students admitted to using undergraduate produced material as research. They found it difficult to access post graduate dissertations. Few students use social networking sites as a research tool – and those that do tend to be older… One student posted questions on Twitter,  a habit the authors expect to increase as a trend.

The conclusions go over these trends, again highlighting the problems of accessibility students face alongside the other issues raised.

Recommendations include that  JISC should further promote open access repositories, work with Google to ensure that the search  engine helps UK users and that student friendly benchmarks be invented to help students assess the quality of research.

Key points

Researchers

[There is:] evidence that students do not all easily fit into the stereotype of the digital native and that many students lack the skills to sift through and manage the variety of information at their disposal.

“There is virtually no evidence of students using social networking at this stage” [as a research tool].

“The apparent free-play of information on the internet does not mean that students face less obstacles in accessing  research content.”

“It seems clear that across the sector, traditional structures for managing student access and discovery of research  context have been severely eroded. Tutors are the last resort rather than the first port of call; libraries are not used as a physical resource unless essential materials are not available online.”

“…the few students  who do use social networking to find research content tend to be 22-50 years old.”

Institutions

“Students at all universities expressed dissatisfaction with their library holdings and level of service.”

“Several students from University A said that they had problems accessing journals which their library does not subscribe to. Search engines will return abstracts for articles which cannot then be accessed directly”

“Students in all universities are frustrated that they cannot access research content online and immediately. In other words, they discover research content online using search engines but in many cases they depend on libraries to  subscribe to those journals in order to access them.”

Read the full report (PDF)