Final Project Post 3

I need to email for approval but the research question I have (tentatively) chosen is: What factors affect perceptions of credibility of online information sources among adult learners? My first searches revealed that this is a subject that has been studied quite a bit, but in large part to assess information literacy among K-12 learners. I am now working on revising this search to find studies focusing on the postsecondary population.

Using a Boolean search for "online AND education AND credibility" in ERIC here are some potential studies I found:

Biddix, J. P., Chung, C. J., Park, H. W. (2011). Convenience or credibility? A study of college student online research behaviors. Internet and Higher Education, 14(3), 175-182.

Kubiszewski, I., Noordewier, T. G., Costanza, R. (2011). Perceived credibility of internet encyclopedias. Computers & Education, 56(3). 659-667

In order to target the population, I changed the search to "online AND education AND credibility AND college." This helped refine my search results in a useful way and resulted in discovering the following potential studies:

David, A. & Glore, P. (2010). The impact of design and aesthetics on usability, credibility, and learning in online courses. Online Journal of Distance Education. 13(4).

Gough, J. (2008, December). The critical evaluation of bibliographic web sources. College Quarterly 11(1).

Although productive, these early searches provided a lot to wade through and illustrated the importance of good search skills. As I continue the search, I will be exploring more advanced search methods such as truncation and searching fields.

Final Project Post 2

This has not been a busy week project-wise! I have been investigating databases other than ERIC. So far I have had good results using Communication & Mass Media Complete and Academic Search Premier. I am currently working on narrowing down my topic using these results, and am considering investigating credibility and online learning resources.

Final Project Post 1

For my final project, I have decided to conduct an online database search. I am still looking to narrow down my review topic but am looking at topics having to do with informal/user-created or open source learning resources. (I am currently working on a literature review in EIS500 that relates to how these are used for health-related information but need to narrow it down to something else for this class.) Right now I am considering using good old ERIC database but am open to other suggestions! Stay tuned for updates.