Today’s college students: Skimmers, scanners and efficiency-seekers

This paper examines the research habits and behaviors of today’s college students. With each technological evolution, students develop increasingly efficient strategies, becoming experts in time management for personal and academic purposes. With demands for their time that include school assignments, social media and ‘me time’, today’s students are rejecting previously-held beliefs about how to conduct research and forging their own unique path towards scholarship. Starting with uncovering what one student called “the Google and Wikipedia cat and mouse game”, a team of EBSCO researchers discovered that for academic research, traditional rules don’t apply, and strategies for conducting research are as diverse as the students themselves.