High school students' Information seeking and use for class projects

Abstract

This study details the activities and strategies that 11th grade students with high academic abilities used during their information seeking and use to complete class projects in a Persuasive Speech class. The study took place in a suburban high school in Maryland, and participants included 21 junior honors students, their teacher, and their library media specialist. Each student produced a 5–7-minute speech on a self-chosen topic. Conducted in the framework of qualitative research in a constructivist paradigm (E.G. Guba, & Y.S. Lincoln, 1998), the study used data collected from observations, individual interviews, and documents students produced for their projects—concept maps, paragraphs, outlines, and research journals. Interview and observation data were analyzed using the constant comparative method (B. Glaser & A. Strauss, 1967) with the help of QSR NVivo 2 (QSR International Pty Ltd, 2002); students' documents were analyzed manually. The findings show that students' understanding, strategies, and activities during information seeking and use were interactive and serendipitous and that students learned about their topics as they searched. The research suggests that high school honors students in an information-rich environment are especially confident with learning tasks requiring an exploratory mode of learning.