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1 – 10 of over 11000Abstract
Purpose
Advances in information technology now permit the recording of massive and diverse process data, thereby making data-driven evaluations possible. This study discusses whether teachers’ information literacy can be evaluated based on their online information behaviors on online learning and teaching platforms (OLTPs).
Design/methodology/approach
First, to evaluate teachers’ information literacy, the process data were combined from teachers on OLTP to describe nine third-level indicators from the richness, diversity, usefulness and timeliness analysis dimensions. Second, propensity score matching (PSM) and difference tests were used to analyze the differences between the performance groups with reduced selection bias. Third, to effectively predict the information literacy score of each teacher, four sets of input variables were used for prediction using supervised learning models.
Findings
The results show that the high-performance group performs better than the low-performance group in 6 indicators. In addition, information-based teaching and behavioral research data can best reflect the level of information literacy. In the future, greater in-depth explorations are needed with richer online information behavioral data and a more effective evaluation model to increase evaluation accuracy.
Originality/value
The evaluation based on online information behaviors has concrete application scenarios, positively correlated results and prediction interpretability. Therefore, information literacy evaluations based on behaviors have great potential and favorable prospects.
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Hamid Keshavarz, Amir Vafaeian and Ali Shabani
User behavior in online information evaluation is the result of a multitude of factors related to social, cultural, personal and psychological issues. The present study aimed to…
Abstract
Purpose
User behavior in online information evaluation is the result of a multitude of factors related to social, cultural, personal and psychological issues. The present study aimed to examine the effects of three important psychological variables including personality, self-efficacy and attitude on online information evaluation.
Design/methodology/approach
Four validated measures were administrated in person and online among 355 postgraduate students at Shahed University, Tehran, Iran. For testing the possible relationships among the variables, the reliability, normality and Pearson correlation tests were performed by using SPSS 24.0. Moreover, to test the ten hypotheses of the research, the structural equation modeling was considered using AMOS 26.0.
Findings
The findings confirmed the first five research hypotheses indicating the direct positive relationships among the four variables except for the impact of self-efficacy on attitude. The mediated effects of the variables were not supported except for the mediating role of attitude in the impact of personality on online evaluation behavior. The variable personality was found to be fundamental among the tested paths because it influenced the information evaluation behavior, both directly and indirectly.
Originality/value
The study showed the impacts of the three variables, which demonstrates that online information evaluation is greatly affected by psychological factors.
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Esra Efendioğlu and Emine Sendurur
This study aims to develop and test a browser extension as a scaffolding tool to guide learners about evaluating online sources.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to develop and test a browser extension as a scaffolding tool to guide learners about evaluating online sources.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 129 undergraduate students participated in this experimental study. Both groups completed two Web searching tasks, but the experimental group used a browser extension.
Findings
The results indicated that there are significant differences between groups in terms of the number of accurate sources and visited sites. There were no differences neither in the success status nor the access time. The browser extension guidance affected certain search parameters, but this effect seemed to be diminished in accordance with students’ cognitive abilities as well as their digital literacy levels.
Research limitations/implications
The participants were from a vocational school, so any other study with different participants might reveal different findings.
Practical implications
The browser extension is convenient to be used with regards to interface and instructions. It can serve as a self-training tool with small changes in the code. The intervals and types of messages can be customized in line with the users’ needs.
Social implications
The approach used in this study can contribute to the dissemination of misleading information on the Web. People of any age can use and benefit from this approach via a simple extension.
Originality/value
The extension can serve as a fundamental framework for the construction of adaptive or smart extensions. As this study revealed the importance of both cognitive abilities and digital literacy levels, the extension can be enriched with the inclusion of cognitive scaffolding.
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Emine Sendurur and Sonja Gabriel
This study aims to discover how domain familiarity and language affect the cognitive load and the strategies applied for the evaluation of search engine results pages (SERP).
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to discover how domain familiarity and language affect the cognitive load and the strategies applied for the evaluation of search engine results pages (SERP).
Design/methodology/approach
This study used an experimental research design. The pattern of the experiment was based upon repeated measures design. Each student was given four SERPs varying in two dimensions: language and content. The criteria of students to decide on the three best links within the SERP, the reasoning behind their selection, and their perceived cognitive load of the given task were the repeated measures collected from each participant.
Findings
The evaluation criteria changed according to the language and task type. The cognitive load was reported higher when the content was presented in English or when the content was academic. Regarding the search strategies, a majority of students trusted familiar sources or relied on keywords they found in the short description of the links. A qualitative analysis showed that students can be grouped into different types according to the reasons they stated for their choices. Source seeker, keyword seeker and specific information seeker were the most common types observed.
Originality/value
This study has an international scope with regard to data collection. Moreover, the tasks and findings contribute to the literature on information literacy.
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Fan-Chen Tseng, Pei-Hsun Emma Liu, T.C. Edwin Cheng and Ching-I Teng
This study intended to identify and categorize the drivers of using online English learning resources (OELR) and to understand OELR's impacts.
Abstract
Purpose
This study intended to identify and categorize the drivers of using online English learning resources (OELR) and to understand OELR's impacts.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted an online survey, obtained complete responses from 157 OELR users and used structural equation modeling (SEM) for hypothesis testing.
Findings
Most utilitarian and hedonic drivers lead to positive perceptions of OELR, which in turn positively contribute to continuance intention (CI). Two counterintuitive findings were obtained. First, functionality was negatively related to the perception of ease of use. Second, perceived ease of use (PEOU) was not related to CI to use OELR.
Practical implications
This study has implications as follows: (1) complexity of the functions of OELR may deter rather than attract users, (2) ease of use of OELR is not directly positively related to CIs and (3) users may seek practical benefits (utilitarian) and experiential learning processes (hedonic) when using OELR.
Originality/value
The authors' study has theoretical significance by being the first to caution that excessive functionality or complexity in assisting learning tools would likely hinder further use of OELR. The practical significance of this finding is that the finding highlights two factors (perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived enjoyment) that could effectively increase OELR use.
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Albert D. Ritzhaupt, Angela Marie Kohnen, Christine Wusylko, Xiaoman Wang, Kara Dawson and Max Sommer
The purpose of this study is to explore the role skepticism plays among adolescents’ online information literacy skills.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore the role skepticism plays among adolescents’ online information literacy skills.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors provide the conceptual grounding to operationalize and measure the notion of skepticism in an online information literacy context. Inspired by an existing measure known as the Skepticism Scale (Hurtt, 2010), the authors made substantial revisions to the scale to target middle school and high school students’ skepticism in six distinct, but related factors: questioning mind; search for knowledge; suspension of judgment; self-esteem; interpersonal understanding; and autonomy. The authors provide preliminary evidence of validity and reliability of the revised Skepticism Scale using Exploratory Factor Analysis and performed multiple linear regression using the Skepticism Scale measures to predict an adolescents’ online information literacy skills.
Findings
The Skepticism Scale was found to produce internally consistent constructs for all six measures. Three of the six measures were related to online information literacy skills, including the search for knowledge, interpersonal understanding and questioning mind.
Originality/value
This paper attempts to examine the potentially positive role of skepticism in information literacy skills among adolescents.
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Guided by the Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking (CMIS), this article identifies significant predictors that impact individuals seeking COVID-19 information. People with…
Abstract
Purpose
Guided by the Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking (CMIS), this article identifies significant predictors that impact individuals seeking COVID-19 information. People with different political ideologies read contradictory information about the COVID-19 pandemic. However, how political ideology may affect COVID-19 information seeking remains unclear. This study explores the major information channels for individuals with different political ideologies to seek COVID-19 information. It further examines how political ideologies influence CMIS's effectiveness in predicting online health information-seeking.
Design/methodology/approach
This study collected 394 completed survey responses from adults living in the United States after the 2020 lockdown. ANOVA analyses revealed the differences in salience, beliefs, information carrier characteristics, utilities and information-seeking actions between Liberals and Conservatives. Regression analyses discovered variables that predict Liberals' and Conservatives' online health information seeking.
Findings
Results suggest that the internet is the top channel for COVID-19 information seeking. Compared to Conservatives, Liberals report more COVID-19 information-seeking actions. Liberals also express stronger salience, perceive higher trustworthiness of online COVID-19 information, are more likely to think of seeking online COVID-19 information as useful and helpful and report more substantial efficacy to mitigate the risk. Most CMIS variables predict Liberals' information seeking; however, only salience significantly predicts Conservatives' information seeking.
Originality/value
This article indicates that CMIS should include political ideology to refine its prediction of information seeking. These findings offer practical implications for designing health messages, enhancing information distribution and reducing the public's uncertainty.
Peer review
The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-08-2022-0436.
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Scientific impact is traditionally assessed with citation-based metrics. Recently, altmetric indices have been introduced to measure scientific impact both within academia and…
Abstract
Purpose
Scientific impact is traditionally assessed with citation-based metrics. Recently, altmetric indices have been introduced to measure scientific impact both within academia and among the general public. However, little research has investigated the association between the linguistic features of research article titles and received online attention. To address this issue, the authors examined in the present study the relationship between a series of title features and altmetric attention scores.
Design/methodology/approach
The data included 8,658 titles of Science articles. The authors extracted six features from the title corpus (i.e. mean word length, lexical sophistication, lexical density, title length, syntactic dependency length and sentiment score). The authors performed Spearman’s rank analyses to analyze the correlations between these features and online impact. The authors then conducted a stepwise backward multiple regression to identify predictors for the articles' online impact.
Findings
The correlation analyses revealed weak but significant correlations between all six title features and the altmetric attention scores. The regression analysis showed that four linguistic features of titles (mean word length, lexical sophistication, title length and sentiment score) have modest predictive effects on the online impact of research articles.
Originality/value
In the internet era with the widespread use of social media and online platforms, it is becoming increasingly important for researchers to adapt to the changing context of research evaluation. This study identifies several linguistic features that deserve scholars’ attention in the writing of article titles. It also has practical implications for academic administrators and pedagogical implications for instructors of academic writing courses.
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Hsin Hsin Chang, Yu-Yu Lu and Pei Ru Li
In this paper, Yale model was adopted to understand how the characteristics of a green message (goal framing, argument volume and argument consistency), its source (source…
Abstract
Purpose
In this paper, Yale model was adopted to understand how the characteristics of a green message (goal framing, argument volume and argument consistency), its source (source credibility) and its receivers (environmental consciousness) influence the communication process regarding the receivers' perceptions and attitudes (information value, persuasiveness and communication effectiveness) and their intention to spread the green message.
Design/methodology/approach
Eight scenarios of factorial design were developed to test the effects of a message on receivers' perceptions and attitudes. 1,157 valid questionnaires were used to conduct AMOS-SEM and ANOVA analyses.
Findings
The analytical results showed significant differences between the persuasive effects of Scenarios 1 and 8. A high level of environmental consciousness significantly affected the relationships between the message characteristics, source credibility and information value, leading to a higher intention to share the green messages.
Research limitations/implications
The Yale model was applied to online persuasion to examine the receivers' perceptions of and attitudes toward a green message and their intention to share it on social networking sites (SNSs). Being environmentally conscious can strengthen the perception that the receivers of an online green message have of the source credibility and information value. The Yale model proved to represent the online green message-sharing context and explain how to persuade online users more effectively.
Practical implications
This study suggests that green message providers should present content emphasizing the losses associated with inaction, thus increasing the receivers' acceptance of the message's persuasiveness. Additionally, with the assistance of supportive measures, such as national education programs, government policies and actions showing corporate social responsibility, the environmental awareness of individuals can encourage them to share green message posts on SNSs and engage in green practices.
Social implications
A significant effect of the message characteristics (goal framing × argument volume × argument consistency) was observed on SNS users' perceived source credibility and information value. Therefore, key opinion leaders, governments, and organizations who want to promote green ideas and attract public attention are encouraged to provide messages emphasizing the costs of inaction and contain arguments with a sufficient number of responses strongly supporting the original message. This could arouse the concern for green issues among online communities.
Originality/value
A Yale model research framework was developed to investigate the effect of message characteristics on the intention to share green messages online. Receivers' environmental consciousness played a vital role in this message-sharing process.
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This article aims to elaborate the context-sensitive nature of credibility assessment by examining how such judgments are made in online discussion in times of uncertainty caused…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to elaborate the context-sensitive nature of credibility assessment by examining how such judgments are made in online discussion in times of uncertainty caused by Finland's intent to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in spring 2022.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical findings draw on the qualitative content analysis of 3,324 posts submitted to a Finnish online discussion in February–March 2022. It was examined how the participants of online discussion assess the credibility of information sources referred to in debates on the NATO membership. It is assumed that the believability of the author of information is indicative of his or her expert power, for example based on the credentials of a scholar, while the credibility of information content, for example the provision of factual evidence is indicative of the source's informational power.
Findings
Political decision-makers, particularly the President of Finland were assessed as most credible information sources, due to their access to confidential knowledge and long-time experience in politics. The credibility assessments differed more strongly while judging the believability of researchers. On the one hand, their expertise was praised; on the other hand, doubts were presented about their partiality. Fellow participants of online discussion were assessed most negatively because information sources of these types are associated with low expert and informational power.
Research limitations/implications
As the study concentrated on credibility assessments made in a Finnish online discussion group, the findings cannot be extended to concern the credibility judgments occurring information in other contexts.
Originality/value
The study is among the first to characterize the role of expert and informational power in credibility assessment in times of uncertainty.
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