University of Glamorgan
School of Humanities & Social Sciences
WELL Project 1999/2000: German Section
Questionnaire 2: Research Strategies
Number of students on the module: 6
Number of questionnaires returned: 4 (to date)
While the first questionnaire tried to assess students’ prior knowledge of the Internet in general, the second questionnaire was aimed at finding out how students research topics and how they rate the Internet compared to other facilities. This questionnaire also tried to elicit practical comments/advice from students to pass on to future students embarking on a research topic of this kind.
Evaluation
1. Traditional Resources vs. Internet.
When asked about ‘pre-Internet’ research sources, students commented favourably on the ‘hard copy’ nature of materials they used to work with, such as library books. However, it was generally observed that, once the Internet had become easier to use, it had also become a valuable research tool. Thus, the ‘advantages of the Internet’ were the following (no order of preference):
Interestingly, all students pointed out that ‘free access’ was a major criterion – this may mean that they are making use of the facilities even more because they do not have to pay for them.
2. Perception of the Internet
All students said that, because it is now easier to use, the Internet has become more important in their everyday activities. It was generally regarded as essential knowledge for the future.
3. Random Search vs Refining the Search
Although students said they rarely used random search (which reflects a fair deal of ‘search competence’), they revealed that they occasionally use the following search engines for random search:
Askjeeves was clearly the overall favourite and appeared in every questionnaire.
When refining their search, students appear to use the following method:
4. Topics and Themes
As most topics presently researched by students are of a socio-cultural nature, they have had to get acquainted with topics in the following areas:
- politics
- culture
- history (Germany/Europe)
- culture
- science/scientific research
5. Useful Sites
www.spiegel.de
www.spiegel-online.de
www.taz.de
www.stern.de
www.welt.de
www.zeit.de
www.bild.de
www.fr-aktuell.de
www.sueddeutsche.de
www.tagesspiegel.de
www.derstandard.de
www.stuttgarterzeitung.de
www.fpoe.de
www.bbc.co.uk
www.the-times.co.uk
www.wall-berlinorg/gb/annexe/htm
www.guardianunlimited.co.uk
www.independent.co.uk
6. Useful tips
One student offered the following procedure:
a) use yahoo for a list of all newspapers in the target country
b) use their websites for archive etc. research
Comments
It appears that the students primarily search for specific information and know how to access the information they require. They get their information mainly from newspapers and magazines (interestingly, nobody used information on the websites of TV channels etc.) The concept of ‘media’ is restricted to the print media. By using such a narrow idea, students miss out on useful information from other sources.