Children's internet searching on complex problems: Performance and process analyses

The research reported here examined the effects of task structure on elementary school students' information seeking on the Internet. Thirty‐two 5th‐ and 6th‐grade students searched on 2 tasks (1 well‐defined and 1 ill‐defined) for information that was relevant to solving 2 problems. Information‐seeking process behaviors were analyzed by collecting computer trace data of each students search. Information‐seeking performance was measured by 2 adult raters and by students' own judgments of all documents found. Analyses of students' process behaviors illustrated that children are interactive information seekers, preferring to browse rather than plan or employ systematic analytic‐based searching strategies. Performance results indicated that children have difficulty finding relevant information on the Internet, however, children did search more effectively on the ill‐defined task than on the well‐defined one. Further, when judging their own performance, students rated their work equally on both tasks, yet adult judges found that students performed significantly worse on the well‐defined task. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.