How do students search during class and homework? A query log analysis for academic purposes

Abstract

Strong points, weak points and interests of students are precious data for their teachers, but it is hard to learn them quickly, especially when students do not cooperate in class. This paper explores a method for analysing queries of students that are allowed to search during class and homework. For this purpose, we first established six hypotheses on the queries and the expertise of the students. Then, we collected 143 queries from several lectures of an IT subject at Kyoto University. 36 students of this subject had previously been profiled before each lecture by means of questionnaires. When we checked our hypotheses against this collection of queries, we found that experts and novices often search the same way, although experts send more queries about different subjects. Some students also search contents that the teacher has not presented yet. © 2013 Springer International Publishing.