Classroom-Based Multiple Source Use: Comparing Profiles Across Search Conditions

Undergraduate students are often required to search for and work with multiple sources to complete academic tasks, such as the composition of argumentative essays. We set out to investigate students’ multiple source use (MSU) behaviors and decision making during a classroom-based MSU activity in which students had to find sources and use those sources in an argumentative essay on a controversial topic. We then explored whether students could be clustered into distinguishable, meaningful groups based on their MSU behaviors. We conducted two such studies with varying source search conditions: one with a library of pre-selected sources and one with an open online search process. In both cases, the sourcing task served as preparation for students to write an essay on the controversial topic of students’ over-reliance on technology and the effects this over-reliance may have on students’ well-being. In the first study, students were given access to a library of 10 pre-selected sources of varying quality and reliability; in the second, students were asked to conduct their own unrestricted Internet search for sources and logged their search behaviors and decision making in an innovative search log. In the current study, we compare the two studies and the profiles that resulted from the analyses and will present remarkable patterns and consistencies, as well as their implications for research and practice. peerReviewed acceptedVersion