Abstract:

Today’s ubiquitous digital information combined with the technical complexity of the internet and search engines pose myriad challenges to youth in seeking, interpreting, judging, and using information. Studies (e.g., Bilal, 2000; Gossen & Nürnberger, 2013; Kodama et al., 2017; Bilal & Gwizdka, 2018) have consistently shown that despite being “digital natives” (Prensky, 2001), the majority of youth experience difficulty in formulating effective search queries, interpreting retrieved results, and finding relevant information. While researchers have suggested intervention mechanisms including information literacy, we argue that youth’s incomplete and erroneous understanding of search engines may be at the core of these problems. Yet, scarce research has delved into youth's cognitive aspect this understanding. A user's inaccurate mental model can result in difficulty in achieving goals (Norman, 2013). Findings have implications for designing intervention programs in schools.

Research Questions:
1. What is youth’s conceptual understanding of
a. the internet?
b. search engines and how they rank search results?
2. What do youth learn in schools about search engines?

Method:
We designed and distributed a survey of 51 questions online. We collected data between February and April 2019 from 60 participants aged 10-18, among whom 38 (63%) provided completed responses. We analyzed the quantitative data by using Excel. We analyzed the qualitative data collected by open-ended questions using the content analysis method (Zhang & Wildemuth, 2017) facilitated by MAXQDA 2018 (VERBI Software GmbH).

Findings:
Due to space limitation, we report the findings of question 1, a.

Youth conceptualized three aspects:
(a) What the internet is. Nearly 30% indicated a database with information from all over the world, a collection of information, and information that tells about things happening in the world.
(b) Functions of the internet. Seventy-one percent mentioned what they can do with the internet such as find information, get entertained, share information, connect to the world, and go to a particular website.
(c) Feelings about the internet. Thirty-one percent noted their emotional inclination towards the internet indicating it is cool, entertaining, addictive, interesting, and helpful.

References:
[1] Bilal, D. (2000). Children's use of the Yahooligans! Web search engine. I. Cognitive, physical, and affective behaviors on fact-based tasks. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 51(7), 646-665.
[2] Bilal, D., & Gwizdka, J. (2018). Children’s query types and reformulation in Google search. Information Processing & Management, 54(6), 1022-1041.
[3] Gossen, T., & Nürnberger, A. (2013). Specifics of information retrieval for young users: A survey. Information Processing & Management 49(4), 739-756.
[4] Kodama, C. et al. (2017). There’s a creepy guy on the other end at Google!: Engaging middle school students in a drawing activity to elicit their mental models of Google. Journal of Information Retrieval, 20, 403–432.
[5] Norman, D.A. (2013). The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books.
[6] Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon 9(5), 1-6.
[7] Zhang, Y., & Wildemuth, B. M. (2017). Qualitative analysis of content. In B. Wildemuth (Ed.), Applications of Social Research Methods to Questions in Information and Library Science (2nd ed., pp. 318–329). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Keywords:

Youth, Children, Teens, Conceptual Understanding, Mental Models, Internet, Search Engines.