Transcript Student Behaviors：Academic Task Performance with Support from

Student Behaviors：Academic
Task Performance with Support
from Information from English
Websites
Nantawan Chuarayapratib
Thammasat University
Previous Studies
– New Literacies e.g. Martin, A. and
Madigan, D. (2006)
– Humans and Computers e.g.
Chuarayapratib, N. (2005)
– Concept Maps e. g. Chularut, P. and
Debacker, T, (2004)
New Literacies
»
ESL students must acquire linguistic competence
in a new language as well as use English to acquire,
articulate and expand their knowledge
» Students must be critically literate, defined here as
the ability to evaluate the validity and reliability of
informational sources so that they may draw
appropriate conclusions from their research efforts
» Students must become electronically literate, able
"to select and use electronic tools for communication,
construction, research, and autonomous learning”
Humans and Computers
Interactions
Chuarayapratib (2005)
• Students did not click much.
• Their eyes got sore quickly.
• Students complained about not having
chances to write on paper.
Concept maps
• A concept map is a special form of a web
diagram for exploring knowledge and
gathering and sharing information.
• A hierarchy is a system for arranging
entities such that every entity has exactly
one superior.
Research questions
•
•
•
What is the role of information from the
web?
What are the ways students seek
information?
How do the students manage information
from the Web?
Research Methodology
• Students at Thammasat University who
studied EG 221 Reading for Information
during semester 1/2006. They were from
several faculties in Thammasat University,
such as Faculty of Liberal Arts, Faculty of
Political Science, Faculty of Commerce
and Accountancy, and Faculty of
Economics.
Research Method
• Questionnaire
• Interview
• Web searching
demonstration
• Students’ works
Findings
• Students claim that information
found from the web is to
complement that found from
printed materials.
Advantages and disadvantages of
printed materials
Advantages
• Substantial and reliable
• Easier to read
Disadvantages
• Difficult to find
• Taking a lot of time
Information from the Internet
Advantages
• Convenient if you have access to the Internet
• Variety of Information
• Up-to-date information
Disadvantages
• Lack of reliability of the texts
• Time available
• The number of the computers
• The quality of Internet access
Research Question 2 What are the
ways students seek information?
• Since the students have objectives, they
evaluate information found from the web
and select that which serves their
purposes. They modify their search.
Students know when to add some more
words into the search engine. They also
get some assistance from their classmates.
Websites that they go to often
(apart from search engines)
• Wikipedia
• National Economic and Social
Development Institute (in Thai)
Other Reactions
Students’ eyes not becoming
sore as often as in the past
• Students not complaining as
much about inability to take notes
on paper
•
Challenges
Students need to be point out usefulness of
the following features:
• Boolean operations
• Electronic journal database
• listserv
Reliability
• Students look at URLs which contain .edu,
.org
• Students try to find other web pages with
the same information
How do the students manage
information from the Web?
•
Loading information for use
Students claim that they copy the
information into MicrosoftWord so that
they can see whether the information is
relevant or not.
• Another advantage is that they have
chances to let their classmates see
whether the information can be used in
their paper. According to one student,
“Since it is a group report, I would like my
friends to see it first and comment on it
before I print it out.”
When they find information which is
not relevant to the task at had
but will be useful in future.
• Students have two different
approaches to this situation.
Group One
When the students see information which
will be useful for future, they leave some
space before they paste information for
those new topics.
Group Two
• The students focus only on the information
relevant to the tasks at hand. They will
ignore information not relevant to them for
the time being.
Conclusion and implications
• Students benefit from information from
English websites. However, most of them
claim that information from the Internet is
used to complement the information from
printed materials.
Students are more familiar these day with
websites features such as links. They are
more comfortable and exploit them more
fully.