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<article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
  <front>
    <journal-meta>
      <journal-title-group>
        <journal-title>Journal
of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 64(1) (2013) 173-189. URL:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.22809/pdf.
[21] M. Landoni</journal-title>
      </journal-title-group>
      <issn pub-type="ppub">1613-0073</issn>
    </journal-meta>
    <article-meta>
      <article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.1145/1753326.1753388</article-id>
      <article-id pub-id-type="urn">.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:</article-id>
      <title-group>
        <article-title>Search Tools and Social Networks Shape Teen Learning in an AI World</article-title>
      </title-group>
      <contrib-group>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Emiliana Murgia</string-name>
          <email>emiliana.murgia@unifg.it</email>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff0">0</xref>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">3</xref>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">4</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Monica Landoni</string-name>
          <email>monica.landoni@usi.ch</email>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff0">0</xref>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">2</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Theo Huibers</string-name>
          <email>t.w.c.huibers@utwente.nl</email>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff0">0</xref>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">5</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Maria Soledad Pera</string-name>
          <email>m.s.pera@tudelft.nl</email>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff0">0</xref>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">1</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Workshop</string-name>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff0">0</xref>
        </contrib>
        <aff id="aff0">
          <label>0</label>
          <institution>Children</institution>
          ,
          <addr-line>Search, Education, Information Retrieval, Social Media, Education, Generative AI, CEUR-WS</addr-line>
        </aff>
        <aff id="aff1">
          <label>1</label>
          <institution>Technische Universiteit Delft</institution>
          ,
          <addr-line>Postbus 5 2600 AA, Delft</addr-line>
          ,
          <country country="NL">The Netherlands</country>
        </aff>
        <aff id="aff2">
          <label>2</label>
          <institution>USI Università della Svizzera Italiana</institution>
          ,
          <addr-line>Via Bufi 13, 6900 Lugano</addr-line>
          ,
          <country country="CH">Switzerland</country>
        </aff>
        <aff id="aff3">
          <label>3</label>
          <institution>University of Foggia</institution>
          ,
          <addr-line>Via A.Gramsci 89/91 - Foggia</addr-line>
          ,
          <country country="IT">Italy</country>
        </aff>
        <aff id="aff4">
          <label>4</label>
          <institution>University of Genova</institution>
          ,
          <addr-line>Corso A. Podestà 2 - Genova</addr-line>
          ,
          <country country="IT">Italy</country>
        </aff>
        <aff id="aff5">
          <label>5</label>
          <institution>University of Twente</institution>
          ,
          <addr-line>Drienerlolaan 5, 7522 NB Enschede</addr-line>
          ,
          <country country="NL">The Netherlands</country>
        </aff>
      </contrib-group>
      <pub-date>
        <year>2022</year>
      </pub-date>
      <volume>2950</volume>
      <fpage>03</fpage>
      <lpage>05</lpage>
      <abstract>
        <p>The way people seek, access, and use information for learning has changed. Once the primary gateway to information, search engines now share the stage with various digital/social platforms. This change is perhaps more notable among teenagers and has undoubtedly influenced how they browse and select resources to support their learning. To understand their habits and how alternatives to search engines have influenced them, in this work, we explore how high school students conduct online inquiries in the classroom. Our findings reveal that search engines are not always students' first choice; social networks often play a leading role. This shift has important implications for the design of information retrieval technology, as researchers should consider how teenagers-an understudied population-use this range of tools. In addition, it is critical to foster search and media literacy skills among young users, who increasingly turn to tools not designed to search for information for educational purposes.</p>
      </abstract>
    </article-meta>
  </front>
  <body>
    <sec id="sec-1">
      <title>-</title>
      <p>CEUR</p>
      <p>ceur-ws.org</p>
      <p>
        Flickr, have been identified as potential tools for enhancing collaborative learning, research capabilities,
inquiry-based learning, critical discourse, analytical thinking, and problem-solving competencies [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref15">15</xref>
        ].
      </p>
      <p>
        The pervasive role of social media in contemporary youth culture has prompted educators to
investigate its potential as a pedagogical application. However, educators generally agree that it is critical
to reconcile these platforms’ educational possibilities with their inherent capacity for distraction [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref16">16</xref>
        ].
Triggered by the emergence of generative tools based on Large Language Models (LLMs), like ChatGPT,
that ofer direct answers to prompts, students’ behaviour has undergone significant transformations
when seeking online information for learning, as this group is among the early adopters [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref17">17</xref>
        ].
      </p>
      <p>Mindful that information seeking in the classroom is an activity that becomes more frequent and
complex as students progress from the first years of primary to intermediate and high school, we
investigate high school students’ search habits and practices, assuming their literacy skills concerning
reading and writing have also consolidated over time. Specifically, in this work, we explore whether
and how high school students’ search behaviour has changed, focusing on the tools1 and sources they
rely on to become informed. Through a mixed-method exploration, we aim to understand the tools and
platforms students ages 14 to 18 use to satisfy their information needs to learn in the classroom context
in this evolving digital environment. Furthermore, via a preliminary investigation based on qualitative
and quantitative data from small groups of students working in teams, we also seek to understand the
practices they adopt when they search for learning.</p>
      <p>
        To guide our exploration, we outline two research questions:
• (RQ1) Which tools do young searchers use to seek information in the classroom?
• (RQ2) What criteria guide young searchers in the school when selecting retrieved sources/results?
Our findings spotlight the advantages, limitations, and considerations of adopting technologies within
the educational context. In fact, by scrutinising the preferences and behaviours of high school students,
focusing on their use of SE, social media, and other digital resources that can support their learning (see
[
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref18">18</xref>
        ]), we identify future research directions to possibly result in the design of innovative interactions
supported by ad-hoc algorithmic solutions and complemented by an adequate coverage of search and
media literacy. This efort will support students in harnessing the full potential of online resources
while mitigating adverse efects. Ultimately, this research contributes to the ongoing discourse on
integrating emerging technologies in learning and provides insights that can inform educational policies
and curriculum design (echoing the suggestions proposed by Antoine Van Den Beemt and Willems
[
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref16">16</xref>
        ]). It will also inform research directions for the Child-Computer Interaction (CCI) and Information
Retrieval (IR) communities pertaining to the design of tools to support the development of optimal
information-seeking practices for the next generation of learners.
      </p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-2">
      <title>2. How Teen Navigate the Information World: Background &amp; Related</title>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-3">
      <title>Work</title>
      <sec id="sec-3-1">
        <title>In this section, we briefly discuss background and related literature informing our work.</title>
        <p>
          Background Focusing on the process of children searching for information at home, Druin et al. [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref19">19</xref>
          ]
explored the various roles children play. The authors isolated seven diferent profiles: (i) Non-motivated
(happy with the very first results); (ii) Distracted (easily sidetracked and so abandons the search to
follow other paths); (iii) Visual (predominance for images over text); (iv) Rule-Bound (overly reliant on
given steps rather that trust their capabilities); (v) Developing (eager, not yet skilled enough for complex
tasks); (vi) Content (rely on known websites); and (vii) Power (highly skilled searchers). Similar roles are
found by Foss et al. when considering teenagers and observing how, compared with younger children,
this user group is more social and proficient at identifying good sources of information [ 20]. Landoni et
al. [21] explored how the aforementioned roles apply to children searching in the school context. They
1We use ‘tool’ in its broader sense, to refer primarily to online tools, but also tools used in the educational context, e.g. books.
approached the analysis from a quantitative perspective, using performance indicators such as session
length, the number of query terms, the number of clicks, and the rank position of clicked sources.
Searching in the classroom difers from searching at home. Children at school have tasks assigned by
their teachers. Motivational rewards, such as good grades, often accompany these tasks. They have
limited time to accomplish the tasks and can rely on the support of peers and teachers. Even so, the
authors found that the roles identified by Druin et al. [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref19">19</xref>
          ] could also be observed in the classroom. The
very same setting that provided a “sample task situation” for Jarvelin and Sormunen when discussing
the need for a new metrics, multi-dimensional cumulated utility (MDCU), to better account for the
many facets that compose the overall usability of a document and in so doing going beyond traditional
relevance [22]. Our study, also conducted in a high school classroom, explored how teens search for
learning resources under similar constraints: limited time, defined tasks, and extrinsic motivation.
Working in groups—as is common among teens [20, 23]—made it dificult to assign individual searcher
roles. Instead, we focused on the criteria groups used to select sources and make collective decisions.
Related Work Research in the IR domain focusing on children—defined by General Assembly of
United Nations in Article 1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as individuals from 0 to 18
[24]—remains scarce and insuficient to provide a detailed picture of their specific needs and an in-depth
account of their search behaviour [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref11">11, 25, 26</xref>
          ]. The few available studies are often conducted on a
small scale, and with a focus on primary school children [27]. Therefore, results cannot be generalised
nor inform the implementation of new algorithmic interventions [28, 29, 30]. What is clear is that
children are not small adults, their voices need to be heard and teenagers, high school children, are a
neglected sub-group that deserves more attention also in light of them having a more intense exposure
to technology while looking to assert their physical and digital identity in the transition from child to
adulthood [23, 20].
        </p>
        <p>Recently, several reports have reflected on the impact of the IR community on research that advances
understanding and supports teenagers in their learning pursuits. They have evinced that children, and
teenagers even more so, are a very complex user group to investigate: the variability index is very
high among them, with many factors influencing their search behaviour, starting from developmental
stage [31], cultural backgrounds, attitude, skills, experience [32] and inclinations to mention a few.
Additionally, ethical considerations are paramount when dealing with these vulnerable users, and legal
restrictions in place to protect them pose limitations to the running of TREC-like studies, where the
availability of user data plays a crucial role. This lack of knowledge evinced the need for studies such
as the one we report in this work.</p>
        <p>
          However, recall that as we mentioned in Section 1, teenagers searching for learning do not seem to
be limited to the IR realm. Given their habits, we also consider research focused on the social media
and social networks areas of study. In this case, researchers are focusing on teenagers’ digital lives,
from their access to and use of the Internet [33] to their use of social networks (SN), to investigate
the efects on their development. A minimal number of studies are directed explicitly to adolescents’
information-seeking habits, either for general or for learning purposes. From these works [34], we
know that teenagers make diferent choices if they live in an urban area versus a rural one [ 35]; the
formers still rely on adults such as teachers, parents, or grandparents, while the latter prioritise digital
tools [36]. They also tend to prioritise tools that provide entertainment, such as TikTok, despite its lack
of reliability [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref13">13</xref>
          ]. Young searchers are prone to relying on and sharing SN contents, even when they
have no clue about their reliability, to be part of their communities [37], thereby exposing themselves
to disinformation.
        </p>
      </sec>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-4">
      <title>3. Profiling Teens Searching for Learning: Methodology</title>
      <p>Below, we describe the setup of our exploration to identify adolescents’ (i) habits when looking for
information (i.e., choices of search tools and sources they use to learn and become informed), and (ii)
criteria for selecting retrieved results (i.e., the process that leads them to choose vs. discard a source they
(a) Samples of the sticky notes collected during
the activity in the school environment
(b) Paper form which students used to record the choice of the</p>
      <p>tools and sources
are exposed to). For this, we adopted a mixed-method approach to collect quantitative and qualitative
data in a high school context.</p>
      <p>To answer RQ1, we collected data using empty sticky notes (see Figure 1a), asking students to indicate
which tool or tools they rely on when searching online. We also provided a form on paper (as shown in
Figure 1b) to let students record the steps of their seeking process, with particular attention on tool
choice and the reasons why they choose or discard a source. This is the data that enabled us to answer
RQ2. As they only have smartphones as devices, the choice was to provide them with paper forms to
ease the work, as filling out a table on a small screen was, in their words, dificult. During the activity,
no requirements were given about search tool choices or guidance on retrieving information better. In
agreement with the teachers, the data collection was inserted into the regular activity for two main
reasons: from an education point of view, to facilitate students in activating a metacognitive process;
for the research side, to provide intrinsic motivation and keep them involved and committed, such as in
a regular school task.</p>
      <p>Task Description In collaboration with teachers, we designed an activity from the citizenship
education curriculum. The general topic was climate change, which is a curriculum topic for every
school level in Italian schools. The goals were to make students aware of climate change and also help
them understand the risks of disinformation, emphasising the importance of access to eficient and
reliable information search.</p>
      <p>The activity was designed to work in small groups (4-5 students each) in a four-step plan:
1. Collect information on a specific topic by searching online in a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)
setting;
2. Create a short resume of the retrieved information, following Wikipedia’s five pillars and teachers’
instructions;
3. Create or find online an image that could help visualise the information.
4. Share their findings with the class and collect feedback from pairs</p>
      <p>The teachers and researchers introduced the topics (environment and disinformation) by interacting
with students with questions and images that were used as a stimulus for further thought. Then they
described how Wikipedia authors have to follow ‘five Pillars’ 2 when writing content for this platform.
In Step 1, each group was invited to choose a subtopic of climate change and search for the needed
information using their device. During Step 2, they were asked to write a short text that is complete,
coherent, lexically precise, and correct from a grammatical and syntactical side, but also aligned with
2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars
Wikipedia’s five pillars. To complete the task, students had to add an image, leaving them the choice to
do it by searching online or creating an original one by drawing or using a generative AI app. Teachers
allowed students to search for information (text and image) without any direction regarding the choice
of tool, not even online vs. on paper. Moreover, students must compile an on-paper form describing
which sites/sources they selected and why, what sources they discarded and why (Figure 1b). In other
words, the students were invited to record their path in the search as a part of the activity. Teachers
agreed with the proposal to ask students to register details of the search process as it could improve
metacognition and, therefore, make students more aware of their choices when searching online.
Participants For data collection, we involved high school students aged 14 to 18 from a high school
in northern Italy. The students belonging to diferent grades 3: Prima M, Seconda L, Terza D, Quarta B
and Quinta B. The student participants were distributed as follows: 26 in Prima M (14-year-olds), 25 in
Seconda L (15-year-olds), 15 in Terza D (16-year-olds), 21 in Quarta B (17-year-olds) and 20 in Quinta
B (18-year-olds). Note that the students in Terza D could not complete the same activity as the other
classes, and students in Seconda L did not complete the sticky note activity. Therefore, we have four
diferent grades for the collection on sticky notes (82 students) and four for the data collection via the
paper form (91 students).</p>
      <p>Data Collection Protocol During regular classroom instruction, we ran an activity (as described in
Task Description earlier in this Section), which enabled us to elicit students’ reactions. We introduced
the focus of our investigation and started the activity with an icebreaker, during which students received
blank sticky notes and were asked to answer one question about the tools they use to seek information.</p>
      <p>We asked participants to write the answer, as quickly as possible, to the question: “Which tool or tools
do you use when seeking information? for general purposes, including learning and following personal
interests. After collecting the responses, we put them on the whiteboard and briefly reviewed the results
with the students. Data collection involved several steps aiming at comprehensively understanding the
students’ information-seeking behaviours. During Step 1, students working in small groups had to seek
information on a specific subtopic of the general one, climate change. They also have to compile the
mentioned form, specifying on the first page which tools, websites/SN accounts they choose as reliable
sources and why they thought they were a good choice. They had to record the discarded websites,
among those retrieved by SE, as well as the abandoned accounts when consulting SN, on the second
page, specifying why (see Figure 1b).</p>
      <p>Collected Data &amp; Analysis The data collected was pre-processed to handle missing values and
ensure consistency. Some students left one or more response fields blank. We included these respondents
in the dataset but excluded any empty cells from all counts and statistics. As a result, only the tools
explicitly mentioned by each student were analyzed, while blank cells were disregarded. Similarly,
entries such as ”none” or ”nessuno” were treated the same way, as they indicate that no additional tools
were reported. This approach ensures that the valid answers of every respondent are preserved while
preventing empty fields from distorting frequency estimates or measures of diversity. As previously
stated, participants in Terza D (15 students) answered only on the sticky notes; participants in Seconda
L only answered the form. This resulted in 82 response samples inferred from sticky notes and 91
samples inferred from the on-paper form used for eliciting how students select and discard sources. In
data collection terms, Seconda L supplied qualitative data for their choices, but did not specify the tools
they utilised. Conversely, Terza D detailed the tools used but omitted the corresponding qualitative data.
Consequently, Seconda L was excluded from all quantitative statistics related to tool usage, while Terza
D was left out of analyses that linked tool choice to evaluative criteria. All summary tables present the
efective sample size (N) for each analysis. Sensitivity checks—removing Terza D from tool counts and
Seconda L from reasoning counts—demonstrated that the rank orders remained unchanged and that
the variations in efect sizes were not statistically significant. This suggests that the omissions do not
3Prima to Quinta in the Italian system maps to the 7ℎ to 12ℎ in the International one.
materially impact the main findings. Nevertheless, the absence of a fully crossed tool-by-reason matrix
restricts our ability to compare how specific evaluative strategies align with particular information
resources across the entire sample. To answer RQ1, we focused on identifying patterns in used tools,
such as SN or traditional SE, on how many diferent tools were used by each student as in the diversity
index, to describe the heterogeneity of the tools chosen by students for each grade and across grades,
and how these tools were combined, if at all. Quantitative analysis was performed to calculate the
frequency of tool mentions and the diversity index for each grade to understand how diverse the tools
used by students are. The correlation analysis explored the relationship between tool diversity and SN
usage. To address RQ2, we analysed the reasons that are behind students’ choices of tools and sources
when seeking information to better understand what led to their choices. We then compared the data
among the grades to probe for emerging patterns among students of diferent ages.</p>
      <p>Note that, for analysis purposes, we grouped the collected samples by grade, which allowed us to
perform a more nuanced scrutiny in terms of understanding potential diferences among user groups
with respect to their preferred tools for online search.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-5">
      <title>4. Teens Searching for Learning: Results</title>
      <p>Using the protocol outlined in Section 3, we analysed the collected data to gain insights into high school
students’ choice of search tools, as well as their information seeking habits and practices.
Which tools do young searchers use to seek information in the classroom? We prepared the
data in a spreadsheet and then used Julius4 for the analysis, the version called Lite, that requires a
subscription. From the quantitative data coming from the sticky notes, students presented a wide range
of tools, as per the average Diversity Index (DI) is 3.52. In fact, the DI scores reported in Table 1 indicate
that the participants in Prima M are more open to a broader range of tools (DI = 4.51), whereas the
participants in Terza D have the lowest number of tools mentioned (DI = 2.67).</p>
      <p>If we consider the tool selection per grade, as shown in Figure 2b, among the 27 students in Prima M,
the most common first choice is Google, but the second is variable, with 12 diferent options (see Figure
2d). Our data reveal that at this age, books, including dictionaries, encyclopedias, and school books, are
still relevant sources as a second choice, together with TikTok. Furthermore, many students declared
they were asking humans, such as mothers (but not fathers), grandparents, or friends. With 15 students’
answers in Terza D, Google dominates as the first choice (12 students), while TikTok is popular as the
second and third choice. In Quarta B, out of 21 students, 12 chose Google as their first choice. This
group presents more SN platform variety, including international ones like Baidu, Xianohongshu, and
WeChat. We inferred that the culture and origin of the students’ families played a role as the mention
of these specific tools came from students whose families come from countries where these SN are
popular. The few mentions of ChatGPT came from students in this group (17-year-olds).</p>
      <p>Participants in the last grade of high school, Quinta B, seemed to favour traditional tools (e.g.,
encyclopedias and books, in general) besides SE and SN. Among SN, YouTube is the most common as a
4Julius is an AI research and data analysis assistant created by Julius AI https://julius.ai, capable of data analysis and
visualisation, scientific computing and statistical analysis, document processing and text analysis, image analysis and
interpretation, code execution and debugging in Python, mathematical and technical computations.
(a) Search tools used across student groups
(b) Ranking of preferred tools for information
seeking across grades.
(c) Tool distribution among students grouped by grade.
(d) Search tools choices distribution per grade.
second choice. Interestingly, this group mentioned more “trusted websites” than other grades, possibly
because of their more established experience in searching online.</p>
      <p>There are also common patterns among grades. Google remains consistently the first choice across
grades; SN emerges as a common second and third choice, particularly from the Terza D onward.
Among these platforms, TikTok is more popular with younger students, whereas YouTube is preferred
for Quinta B (Figure 3a).</p>
      <p>As captured in Figure 2c and Table 1, in examining the tools’ diversity index across diferent grades,
we note that the Prima M demonstrated the highest diversity, employing 24 unique tools. In contrast,
the Terza D exhibited the lowest diversity, employing only 11 unique tools. In particular, the participants
in Quarta B and Quinta B utilised 21 and 17 unique tools, respectively. An interesting point is that the
number of sources diminishes from participants in Prima M to those in Quinta B, probably because
of the diferent expertise in seeking information. A clear pattern emerged across all grades, with the
combination of ‘Google-TikTok’ being the most prevalent. Additionally, Instagram frequently appeared
coupled with both Google and TikTok, highlighting its role in student information-seeking processes
(see Figure 3b. These findings underscore the varied approaches to tool usage among diferent grades.</p>
      <p>
        The results reported in Figure 2a indicate that high school students still use SE when looking for
information. Nevertheless, they would rather take advantage of various tools; students typically
mention using 2 to 4 tools. While the most popular first choice is Google, the most common second
and third tools are SNs. Among SNs, TikTok and YouTube are the favourites, followed by Instagram.
Considering the diferent groups of students, age appears to influence their choices: in Prima M, no
one mentioned ChatGPT, but many of them turned to knowledgeable adults, such as mothers, but
not fathers, grandparents, or friends, as sources of information. In Quinta B, the “trusted websites”
(a) Usage of social networks per grade
(b) Tool combination
have more mentions than in other grades, probably indicating superior awareness of the importance
of selecting reliable sources to avoid disinformation. These elder students appear to be moving from
Content to Power Searcher role [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref19">19, 21</xref>
        ].
      </p>
      <p>This analysis of the tool combination index shows students typically start with traditional SE and
then move to social media platforms for more information or verification. The analysis identified the
usage patterns of SNs, highlighting the platforms most frequently mentioned and their positions in
user preferences. It also provides insights into SNs’ role in information-seeking behaviour among
students. Finally, it suggests that students have developed an information search strategy that combines
traditional search methods with social media platforms. This indicates an evolution in how students
access information, moving away from using books or oral sources besides online research to an
information gathering entirely based on online resources.</p>
      <p>The quantitative data collected from the on-paper form shows that Google remains the favoured
among the tools. Interestingly, we also noted that sometimes students are unaware that they are, in
fact, using Google (students reported using “Safari, keywords” and “Google, keywords”, as two distinct
ways to search, even though the Safari browser uses Google as the default SE).</p>
      <p>Overall, the insights emerging from our data analysis allowed us to address RQ1: students show a
significant variety of tools students use to access information, depending on their experience in search,
origin and cultural background.</p>
      <p>Young searchers criteria in selecting retrieved sources/results in the school To address RQ2,
we analysed the qualitative data from the form on paper, comparing the choices that led the students
to adopt or discard the retrieved sources. Analyzing the collected data on the form on paper, related
to the search process, resulted in several interesting insights. As we presented in Section 4, Google is
overwhelmingly at the top of the list of search tools across all grades, but students use it mainly as a
starting point, just by inputting the given keywords. The older students (17 to 18 year olds) prefer more
specific search queries. For instance, it came across that they tend to formulate more complex queries
with multiple questions in the same query, e.g., “allevamenti intensivi: cosa sono e le conseguenze su cibo
e persone”, (intensive livestock farming: what is it and consequences for food and people), whereas
Prima M (14 years old) often prefer to use the provided keywords.</p>
      <p>Complexity is a barrier (“too many technicalities”), but also the excess of simplification; they reject
sources that are too basic or “trivial”. The pervading presence of advertising makes students discard
a source as unreliable. Moreover, from the students’ records about why they select/discard a source,
it emerges that students are aware of the importance of coherence and specificity in the retrieved
information. There are also some patterns in the source selections: students show a preference for
institutional and well-known websites such as WWF (environmental organisation), National Geographic,
Government websites, Educational platforms, and News sources (like La7, an Italian private television
News service). In general, they present some ability to assess the source’s credibility, and it seems to
rise with age, as does the level of their general knowledge: students in Quinta B demonstrated to be
better at assessing the credibility of sources.</p>
      <p>
        Informed by our reported results, we can answer RQ2: students select sources retrieved based on
perceived reliability, preferring oficial and trusted sources (such as governmental or news websites)
while also relying on their prior knowledge. Referring these results to the search roles identified in
[
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref19">19</xref>
        ], these groups are not yet Power Searchers, but they are moving toward it from Developing and
Content roles.
      </p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-6">
      <title>5. Searching in the classroom: Discussion</title>
      <p>Our data analysis suggests that students combine traditional SE-centred search with the information
recommended by a SN while sometimes asking LLMs for direct answers (RQ1), as answered by a student
in Quarta B. On the one hand, the main advantage of using such a variety of tools is that they can
define the best strategy for the task at hand while becoming proficient in using new tools and better
understanding their potential. However, choosing among diferent paradigms, push-and-pull, and
search-and-search adds to the complexity when defining an information-seeking strategy to suit search
roles (i.e., “patterns of behavior common to groups” [20]) and specific tasks. In addition, there is a high
risk of being presented and trusting results when sources are not clearly available and are known to be
biased, as in LLMs and SN.</p>
      <p>The mix and match approach, powerful in theory, works only if users are aware of the diferences in
terms of authority and reputation of sources and have developed critical skills to navigate the diferent
presented results, recognising their value in terms of relevance and assigning them the trust they
deserve. This brings many ethical considerations and highlights the responsibility of the IR together
with the CCI communities to provide a safe and transparent environment for young searchers to be
trained and learn when and how to properly and successfully combine and use these tools.</p>
      <p>In light of the trends emerging from our RQ1 results, we conclude that teens have moved beyond
using SE as their only port of call for information discovery in the classroom. Moving forward, the IR
community should then focus on this underserved user group and undertake studies that can document
high school students’ interactions with a broad range of tools that, in their eyes, help them locate
information in the learning context, possibly keeping into consideration cultural and geographical
factors as well as diferent degrees of experience in search. Consequently, technologies that best address
the needs and expectations of adolescents and how to combine them in an efective search strategy
would be a natural next step [38, 22].</p>
      <p>Considering RQ2, the on-paper form describes which sites/sources students selected and why, what
sources they discarded, and why. These returned a wide range of choices when it comes to selecting
a tool to search. We note that this range of choices that emerged from the answers on sticky notes
was drastically reduced when we analysed the data on usage for school activities. From the on-paper
form data, almost all students seeking information for school activities chose Google as their first
access to information. Trusted or previously known sources play a role in students’ choices. Next to
well-established criteria such as relevance and accuracy, readability and clarity are students’ focuses
when evaluating sources, while poor usability (“messy websites”) and lack of authority and credibility
issues are exclusion criteria.</p>
      <p>
        We can conclude that students need guidance to understand and evaluate the output of their online
search between diferent tools and within each tool to elicit information versus disinformation or
misinformation [39, 40]. This calls for the inclusion of search and media literacy in the curriculum to
empower adolescents to better understand which tool to use best while explicitly mitigating
misinformation issues–crucial among this demographic [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref5">5, 41</xref>
        ]. It is also vital to allocate research eforts to
focus on the collaborative design of novel algorithms and interfaces that can guide children and make it
easier to look at results in a critical way [42, 43].
      </p>
      <p>Limitations The insights from this exploration are interesting as a foundation for further analysis,
but the study has limitations. The sample size is small: the average number of responses per group is
only 3.15, with some groups contributing as few as one response. This sample size limits the reliability
of the findings. We can deploy insights, but not generalise the results. We have complete coverage
from the participants using sticky notes, as we have one note per student involved. The forms on paper,
instead, were filled out in groups, with some having more responses than others, which could impact
the results. Groups with more responses may influence the overall trends.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-7">
      <title>6. Looking at The Future of Teens Searching for Learning: Concluding</title>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-8">
      <title>Remarks</title>
      <p>In this work, we report the results of an exploratory study conducted to better grasp how high school
students aged 14 to 18 undertake online information seeking tasks to support their learning. The aim
was to understand their behaviour when addressing online inquiries related to the classroom context.
The insights inferred from collected data, such as the most common tool combinations as well as how
many times each tool has been chosen and its relative order of preference, yielded a comprehensive
picture of patterns and trends among high schoolers when searching for learning. Notably, the results
reveal a very diverse scenario, as students tend to turn to various tools, from SE to SN platforms,
and rarely LLMs, with significant variability among students. Students appear to perceive each tool
diferently and choose the one they think can best support a given task. Still, research shows that they
are not as proficient as they should be using any of them when searching for learning[ 44], [45]. The
emergence of generative AI and assistive agents based on this technology have the potential to best
support high-schoolers [46], but whether students will be able to use them properly remains to be seen.</p>
      <p>Our findings call for the IR, together with the CCI communities to investigate these habits further
to understand the many factors in place, from searchers’ previous experience to trust and reputation,
as well as reconsider how to support students searching and browsing by expanding the pulling and
pushing models with the one-shot approach ofered by LLM and the colloquial insights provided by
SN. Whether young searchers can meet their information needs using diferent tools is a challenge
that requires a joint efort. Starting from the definition of how to efectively query these diferent tools
and helping searchers devise the best information strategy, to be transparent regarding the trust and
reputation of the results they are exposed to.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-9">
      <title>Acknowledgments</title>
      <sec id="sec-9-1">
        <title>Work partially supported by SNSF Award #[IC00I0-227887 project n.10000973 SOL]</title>
      </sec>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-10">
      <title>Declaration on Generative AI</title>
      <p>During the preparation of this work, the authors utilized Grammarly to check grammar and spelling,
as well as to paraphrase and reword. They also used Julius AI for the data analysis. After using this
tool/service, the authors reviewed and edited the content as needed and take full responsibility for the
publication’s content. No sections in the experimental code or manuscript have been created using
Generative AI tool(s)/service(s).</p>
    </sec>
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