Investigating factors that influence students’ ability to seek online bilingual scientific information
Information and Learning Sciences
ISSN: 2398-5348
Article publication date: 14 August 2023
Issue publication date: 9 November 2023
Abstract
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.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the undergraduate students for their time and participation in this study, as well as to acknowledge financial support from the Vice-Presidency of Research and Creation, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia.
Citation
Archila, P.A., Ortiz, B.T., Truscott de Mejía, A.-M. and Restrepo, S. (2023), "Investigating factors that influence students’ ability to seek online bilingual scientific information", Information and Learning Sciences, Vol. 124 No. 11/12, pp. 373-395. https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-03-2023-0022
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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