Abstract:

The ability to search for and use the information on the Internet - skilfully, intelligently, and critically - is perhaps one of the most important life skills for both children and adults in the twenty-first century. This review of research into students’ Internet search activity from 1990 to 2019 argues that there have been important shifts of research focus that reflect wider technological and cultural changes over the three decades since the WorldWideWeb was launched. Three broad areas that have characterised research are identified: interaction processes, search completion outcomes, and user criticality. Interaction processes were the focus of the earliest studies in the 1990s, with many papers reporting on interviews, observation and self-report, but more recently focus has begun to shift towards cognitive flexibility and user autonomy. Computer-based analyses of web search logs have been reported since 1995, but more recent studies have reported real-time analysis of client-side data that can be used to provide feedback to users, and server-side tools that can infer expertise and adapt search results accordingly. Search outcomes, search completion and search time have been used as dependent variables in studies since the 1990s, but more recently emphasis has shifted to more complex factors related to knowledge production, such as cross-site data synthesis, and text or media production. Since 2010, issues related to criticality have become much more common, with variables such as gauging relevance, estimating an author’s positionality, and judging truthfulness featuring as central themes of research studies. Focus has also moved beyond the individual user, with an increase in papers that highlight collaborative enquiry and dialogue in our ‘post-truth’ world.

Keywords:

WorldWideWeb, Internet search, research review.