This article from Kateri Wilson-Whalley originally appeared in 2013 Summer SLA(S) newsletter. Although the data is now four years old I am planning to do another survey and see if things have improved over that time.
In 2011/12 I’d noticed in my S2 Web vs. Book lesson that many of the pupils
were taking 10 plus minutes to find information available on the front page of
Google. S1 and S2 pupils regularly confused ‘Google’ as being the source of
information plus I had an S5 pupil base an English essay on a single source – a
known fake website.
So in spring 2012 I conducted a whole
school survey via tutors. I asked all years the same 16 questions and then
compared the results. 907 pupils responded. The questions asked about their awareness
of library resources as well as their own internet use.
I felt that pupils didn’t remember what I
told them if they didn’t use it regularly. So to check information retention I
asked about the library catalogue. Despite every pupil being told in S1, only 51% of pupils remembered we had a catalogue.
Unsurprisingly this is directly linked to me reminding them – S1 (seen
fortnightly) 81% remember compared to S4 (no set classes) 27%.
5% of the pupils don’t
have internet at home and of those
that do some commented that this was only occasionally or via a games console
or similar.
74% have no rules on
internet use at home, and as you’d expect the older the pupil the fewer who
claimed parents/guardians imposed rules. Curiously parents of girls are twice
as likely to have regular checks on what they get up to (1 in 5 girls said that
what they looked at was regularly checked).
1/3 of boys use the
internet for news compared to 1/5 of girls.
85% of the pupils use
Facebook .
1 in 3 use Twitter –
girls are twice as likely to than boys.
13% have their own
blog.
89% watch YouTube or
other videos.
7% have their own
website (boys are twice as likely to have one than girls).
Only 4% download
eBooks, though I expect this number will grow.
1 in 5 pupils often
can’t find what they want online. There was no difference between male and
female. However, age does affect pupil’s abilities with nearly 1/3 of S1
struggling to find information compared to just over 1 /10 of S6 (some of the
S6 issue seem to be around finding academic resources).
2/3 of the pupils
trust most of what they find online.
Less than ½ do any
checks on a new website.
Only 1in 10 check who
wrote a website.
Less than a 1/3 check
the date or double check.
I felt these results
backed up my observations from classes. The key point I felt was that 1 in 5
pupils can’t use the internet well enough to find what they want and only half
the pupils are checking quality of this information and even the most basic way.
Yet 84% of pupils use the internet for homework.
What concerns me is
that the same skills are needed to book flights or buy clothes as to research
academic papers. There are assumptions made about the ability of pupils to use
the internet yet it’s clear that when the pupils reach us in S1 this isn’t a
skill they already have and not all have it by S6.
The important question
is what next? I gave a presentation of results to the whole staff at the start
of this year. I revised my S5 Study Skills lessons (I do three annually) to
reflect the skills they needed with more focus on locating and evaluating sites
for research. I’ve also tried to develop the lessons I do with S1 and S2 so
that these also cover and repeat the key points. Plus I’ve raised it with our
whole school Literacy Committee.
I proposed that
teachers:
• Place an emphasis on the reliability of the sources used.
• Ask for a bibliography as part of research
I am also hoping that as a school we will create, or adopt, a universal reminder and use this throughout the school to reinforce the message.
If you fancy
conducting your own survey here are the questions I asked:
1. Do you ever come to the library outside of class
time?
·
Daily
·
Weekly
·
Monthly
·
Couple of times a year
·
Never
2. Can you find books that you want easily? Yes/No
3. Do you have internet access at home? Yes/No
4. Do your parent/guardians make any rules about you
using the internet?
·
No rules
·
Regular Checks
·
No Social Sites
·
Only approved websites
5. What do you use the internet for?
Homework/ News/ Twitter/ blogging/ Tumblr/ Shopping/
Music/ YouTube/ Your own website/ Facebook/ other social networking/ radio/
e-books/ other (please write site name)
Do you agree with these statements?
6. I
often can’t find what I am looking for on the internet – yes/no
7. I trust most of what I find on the internet –
yes/no
8. I am confident about using the internet – yes/no
9. When you use a website for the first time which of
these would you do?
·
Check how up to date the information is
·
Check the information on other websites/ books/etc.
·
Check who created the website and why
·
None of these
·
I don’t go on new websites
10. Did you know you can find books in the library using the online
library catalogue? Yes / No
11.Do you use the JYHS Library Blog outside of class? Yes/No
12. Do ‘like’ JYHS Library on Facebook? Yes/No
13. Do ‘follow’ JYHS Library on Twitter? Yes/No
14. Do you follow the JYHS Library Tumblr blog? Yes/No
15. If you don’t do any of the above why not?
·
Didn’t know they existed
·
Don’t use these websites
·
Not Interested
·
Other (please explain)
16. Any other comments or suggestions on how to
improve the library?
Kateri is the school librarian at The James Young High School
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