More than a Quick Search: Interplay between Students’ use of Scientific Concepts and Online Search Strategies

Digital search strategies are essential for science learning in today’s digital age, but knowledge about students’ search strategies, especially in relation to scientific content, is limited. This study examines upper-secondary students’ meaning-making processes during online searches. Video recordings of students’ online searches and peer-to-peer discussions during two tasks of varying complexity were analysed using Legitimation Code Theory (LCT); the dimension of semantics. The findings identified three previously described search strategies – linear, one-shot, and random searching – while also identifying three additional ones: targeted refinement, text-to-image searching, and piecewise searching. The subsequent semantic analysis of students’ online searches and peer-to-peer discussions showed how these strategies were associated with different forms of meaning-making during digital search processes. These strategies illustrate how students engage with scientific content in different phases of digital search processes. The results indicate that students’ use of scientific concepts were closely intertwined with how they formulated and refined their searches. Strategies involving iterative refinement and movement between isolated and combined search formulations were associated with more extended semantic shifts in the search process.