Pre-Service Teachers and Search Engines: Prior Knowledge and Instructional Implications.
Susan M. Colaric, Bethann Fine, William Hofmann · 2004
There is a wealth of information available on the World Wide Web that can assist pre-service teachers in their course studies. Yet observation of students in a technology integration class indicated that students were not able to find resources efficiently or reliably. The purpose of this study was to establish a baseline of what undergraduate, pre-service teachers know about search engines and searching the Web prior to beginning a course on integrating technology into the classroom. A total of 355 undergraduate, pre-service teachers over three semesters participated in the study. The results indicate low declarative, syntactic and semantic knowledge. Implications for course and program revisions based on the results are addressed. Academic programs are continuously under evaluation and revision. Whether through a formal process from an outside agency, or the individual reflections of an instructor, these reviews seek to determine the effectiveness and value of a specific course or program in terms of the validity of objectives, relevancy and sequence of content, relation between assumed prior knowledge and current course content, and achievement of specific goals. In an internal review of a technology integration course at a southeastern university, the researchers found that faculty in the college of education assumed students at the university knew how to use the Internet as a source of information to support their academic studies. Yet the researchers observed many students had difficulty locating information relevant to their courses and assignments. The researchers also observed students spent a great deal of time on unsuccessful searchers; few students were able to locate relevant resources quickly. The purpose of this study was to establish a baseline of what undergraduate, pre-service teachers know about search engines and search strategies. The results would then be used to determine if any changes in the curriculum were warranted.