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College & Research Libraries News

They’re not just using Web sites: A citation study of 116 student papers

A fear often expressed by today’s academic librarians is that students at their institutions are using Web sites at the expense of more reputable resources, such as books and jour- nals. In order to study just how true this perception might be at the College of Mount St. Joseph, a private college with an enroll- ment of 2,500, I requested faculty to for- ward to me bibliographies of student pa- pers. Six faculty members, each from a dif- ferent discipline, responded, leaving me to compile statis- tics from a total of 116 papers. The results from this sample are discussed below.

As Table 1 indicates, the papers yielded 854 citations. A look at the to- tals reveals that the traditional research sources, articles and books, remain those most often used. To- gether they made up 76 percent of the cita- tions, Web sites accounting for the remain- ing 24 percent. Exceptions to this pattern are the sociology and humanities papers, for which Web sites were used more than any other resource.

No consistent pattern emerged from an examination of course levels for the papers submitted. The only upper-level courses were those from humanities and religion. The physical therapy and nursing courses were mid-level, and those from sociology and chemistry were lower level. Resource requirements outlined by instructors varied from course to course and had a more pro- found effect.

The physical therapy instructor did not al- low the use of any Web sites; the nursing in- structor required that students obtain her permission to use them as sources for their papers. As the numbers in Table 1 indicate, the instructors in the other dis- ciplines adopted a more lenient stance.

Certainly the addition of Web sites has influenced how students conduct research. If my institution is any true indicator, faculty ac- ceptance of Web sites as legitimate resources is by no means universal, but seems to have become valid for many. Students have em- braced Web sites and seem to use them with books and. articles. For the time being, how- ever, the more traditional resources remain in the ascendancy.—Paul O. Jenkins, College of Mount St. Joseph, PaulJenkins@mail.msj.edu

Table 1. Percentage of citations by resource type