Investigating factors that influence students’ ability to seek online bilingual scientific information

Purpose Seeking online bilingual scientific information is a key aspect of bilingual scientific Web literacy – abilities to engage critically with science on the Web using two languages. This study aims to determine whether factors such as age, education major, gender and type of school attended at...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Information and learning science 2023-11, Vol.124 (11/12), p.373-395
Main Authors: Archila, Pablo Antonio, Ortiz, Brigithe Tatiana, Truscott de Mejía, Anne-Marie, Restrepo, Silvia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
21st century
Algorithms
Bilingual Education
Bilingualism
Collaboration
Critical thinking
Curricula
Educational Practices
Educational technology
Information Seeking
Information sources
Internet
Language
Literacy
Online Searching
Pandemics
Science Education
Scientific and Technical Information
Search engines
Students
Thinking Skills
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Summary:Purpose Seeking online bilingual scientific information is a key aspect of bilingual scientific Web literacy – abilities to engage critically with science on the Web using two languages. This study aims to determine whether factors such as age, education major, gender and type of school attended at secondary level (monolingual, bilingual, trilingual) influence undergraduates’ ability to search online Spanish-English bilingual scientific information. Design/methodology/approach The participants in this study were 60 students (43 females and 17 males, 18–25 years old) enrolled in a university bilingual science course at a high-ranked Colombian university. They were asked to complete two tasks in which they had to seek online scientific information in Spanish and in English and post their responses on the Web application, Padlet® (padlet.com). Findings Results indicate that students’ gender and age influence their academic performance in both tasks and level of originality in using information obtained via the Web, respectively. Moreover, the “scientific journal” was the top source of online information from which participants sought most information to complete both tasks. Originality/value People are becoming increasingly accustomed to seeking and sharing online scientific information to support points of view and make decisions. However, it is not known which factors influence students’ ability to seek online first language-English bilingual scientific information in countries where English is the second or foreign language.
ISSN:2398-5348
2398-5356
2398-5348
DOI:10.1108/ILS-03-2023-0022