Online Information Searching Strategy Inventory (OISSI): A quick version and a complete version Meng-Jung Tsai * Graduate School of Technological and Vocational Education, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, 43, Sec. 4, Keelung Rd., Taipei 106, Taiwan article info Article history: Received 31 October 2008 Received in revised form 14 March 2009 Accepted 16 March 2009 Keywords: Teaching/learning strategies Secondary education Pedagogical issues Cognitive strategies On-line search strategies abstract This study developed an instrument to evaluate student online information searching strategies based on a framework comprising three domains and seven aspects. Two versions of the Online Information Searching Strategies Inventory (OISSI), including both quick and complete versions, were finally estab- lished and exhibited good validities and reliabilities. The quick OISSI included 13 items and the complete OISSI included 25 items and the pair had total reliabilities of 0.85 and 0.91, respectively. This instrument provides researchers a valid and reliable tool to evaluate students’ self-reflected web search strategies. The OISSI scores of 324 high school students revealed a significant gender difference in both behavioral and procedural domain strategies; however, no significant difference was observed in metacognitive domain strategies. In addition, student weekly online searching hours were found to significantly impact only behavioral domain strategies but not other domain strategies, implying that increasing student search experience may be insufficient to lift their search strategy. This study suggested several future study directions. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Web-based learning has increasingly been promoted and implemented in schools and educational settings during the recent decade as a result of the rapid development of information technology. In a web-based curriculum, students are increasingly involved in searching for information on the Internet. Students are often required to search information from the Internet in order to turn in their homework or pro- jects. However, searching information in such an open-ended environment as the Internet is complex and challenging especially for novice online learners (Debowski, 2001; Marchionini, 1995). They often have disorientation problems (Dias, Gomes, & Correia, 1999)—do not know what to do, where they are or where to go while searching information on the Internet. Bos (2000) reported that high school students had difficulties in critical evaluation of scientific resources on the WWW. It showed that high school students might summarize web con- tent accurately; however, the comprehensiveness and level of detail still had room for improvement. According to Bos (2000) high school students not only often struggled to identify scientific evidence in web resources, but they also has difficulties in identifying potential biases. Walraven, Brand-gruwel, and Boshuizen (2008) reviewed related literature and concluded that children, teenagers and adults had troubles with specifying search terms, judging search results, judging source and information as well as regulating the search process. Therefore, online information searching and processing is a complex cognitive process involving multifaceted cognitive and metacognitive strategies (Hill, 1999; Tsai & Tsai, 2003; Wu & Tsai, 2005). 1.1. Related research Research from information science have provided several models and discussions (Bates, 1990; Belkin, Cool, Stein, & Theil, 1995; Mar- chionini, 1995; Spink, 2002; Vakkari, 2001) relating to information search processes and strategies in an information retrieval context. Par- ticularly for web search, Spink and Jansen (2004) summarized web search studies as three groups: (1) experiments with users in a laboratory or natural setting; (2) log-file analysis using client-side or server-side transactional recording and analysis; and (3) surveys or other issues affecting web search. However, most of these studies viewed people’s searches as involved with the use of multiple queries on web-based search engines. With a goal for providing feedback for search engine designs, these studies actually emphasized analyzing users’ moves or tactics for interacting with search engines (e.g. multi-tasking and query reformulations) rather than on higher levels of 0360-1315/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2009.03.006 * Tel./fax: +886 2 27376270. E-mail address: mjtsai99@mail.ntust.edu.tw. Computers & Education 53 (2009) 473–483 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Computers & Education journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu