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Do two heads search better than one? Effects of student collaboration on web search behaviour and search outcomes
Author(s) -
Lazonder Ard W.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
british journal of educational technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.79
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1467-8535
pISSN - 0007-1013
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8535.2005.00478.x
Subject(s) - repertoire , psychology , process (computing) , search engine , computer science , information retrieval , world wide web , physics , acoustics , operating system
This study compared Pairs of students with Single students in web search tasks. The underlying hypothesis was that peer‐to‐peer collaboration encourages students to articulate their thoughts, which in turn has a facilitative effect on the regulation of the search process as well as search outcomes. Both hypotheses were supported by the results. Pairs located the target information more often and in less time than Singles did. Pairs also employed a richer repertoire of search strategies and were more proficient in monitoring and evaluating their search behaviour. Implications of these findings for practice and further research are discussed.