An empirical analysis of search engines’ response to web search queries associated with the classroom setting
| Date | 11 December 2019 |
| Pages | 88-111 |
| Published date | 11 December 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-06-2019-0143 |
| Author | Oghenemaro Anuyah,Ashlee Milton,Michael Green,Maria Soledad Pera |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management |
An empirical analysis of search
engines’response to web search
queries associated with the
classroom setting
Oghenemaro Anuyah, Ashlee Milton, Michael Green and
Maria Soledad Pera
People and Information Research Team,
Department of Computer Science, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine strengths and limitations that search engines (SEs)
exhibit when responding to web search queries associated with the grade school curriculum
Design/methodology/approach –The authors employed a simulation-based experimental approach to
conduct an in-depth empirical examination of SEs and used web search queries that capture information
needs in different search scenarios.
Findings –Outcomes from this study highlight that child-oriented SEs are more effective than traditional
ones when filtering inappropriate resources, but often fail to retrieve educational materials. All SEs examined
offered resources at reading levels higher than that of the target audience and often prioritized resources with
popular top-level domain (e.g. “.com”).
Practical implications –Findings have implications for human intervention, search literacy in schools, and
the enhancement of existing SEs. Results shed light on the impact on children’s education that result from
introducing misconception about SEs when these tools either retrieve no results or offer irrelevant resources,
in response to web search queries pertinent to the grade school curriculum.
Originality/value –The authors examined child-oriented and popular SEs retrieval of resources aligning
with task objectives and user capabilities–resources that match user reading skills, do not contain
hate-speech and sexually-explicit content, are non-opinionated, and are curriculum-relevant. Findings
identified limitations of existing SEs (both directly or indirectly supporting young users) and demonstrate the
need to improve SE filtering and ranking algorithms.
Keywords Education, Children, Readability, Search engines, Misinformation, K-12,
Search engine results pages, Web search queries, Child-appropriateness
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Search Engines (SEs) are the “go-to”tools for children’s online information discovery
(Rowlands et al., 2008). Children’s use of SEs goes beyond accessing sites for leisure
purposes, as they also utilize these tools for school-related activities. In fact, teachers in the
USA regularly assign search tasks that require the use of SEs to their students (Hussain
et al., 2011; Scholastic, 2018). Children, however, are still known to experience difficulty
completing successful search sessions (Gossen, 2016). A contributing factor toward
improving children’s search experience could be their understanding of how SEs work.
Unfortunately, search literacy is rarely part of the Kindergarten to twelveth grade (K-12)
curriculum (Campbell et al., 2018; Notess, 2006; Laxman, 2010). Even when search literacy is
included, it can overlook information on the functionality of SEs (Buckingham, 2015).
Further, it more commonly targets educators (Campbell et al., 2018; Notess, 2006;
Laxman, 2010). Educational and child-oriented SEs, such as Kidrex[1] and Kidzsearch[2],
Aslib Journal of Information
Management
Vol. 72 No. 1, 2020
pp. 88-111
© Emerald PublishingLimited
2050-3806
DOI 10.1108/AJIM-06-2019-0143
Received 7 June 2019
Revised 23 August 2019
1 November 2019
Accepted 8 November 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2050-3806.htm
This research work has been supported by the National Science Foundation with Award No. 1565937.
The authors also want to thank the students who took part in this study.
88
AJIM
72,1
could also alleviate challenges regarding the completion of search exercises. Yet, their use is
not a requirement in the classroom. Instead, children tend to favor more mainstream,
popular SEs, like Google and Bing (Foss et al., 2012). These SEs are generally tailored
for adults and as such, are not necessarily equipped to support children’s educational
searches–those posted within the classroom environment or formulated with the intent of
locating curriculum-related materials. Thus, children could access resources that neither
align with requirements inherent to the classroom environment nor their capabilities.
Technology enhanced learning platforms, such as online tutorials and personalized
electronic learning, will continue to gain prominence in response to the iGeneration[3], the
most tech savvy yet (Minal Anand, 2019). With training now being made available to school
teachers (Google, 2019), SEs become natural partners to ease online information discovery
and facilitate, whenever possible, searching while learning (Gwizdka et al., 2016). Therefore,
it is imperative to understand the effectiveness of existing SEs in responding to search
queries pertinent to the K-12 curriculum.
When performing curriculum-related inquiries, children may inadvertently be exposed to
irrelevant materials that are inappropriate, such as pornographic or hate-based sites (Patel
and Singh, 2016; Madigan et al., 2018; Tori DeAngelis, 2007). To avoid the potential retrieval
of inappropriate resources, popular SEs and child-oriented ones make available a
safe-search filter. Safe-search, however, has some shortcomings. On the one hand, this filter
could be too restrictive: it might disregard resources that are relevant to the curriculum but
happen to include terms that can be misconstrued as inappropriate. For example,
Kidzsearch’s safe-search interprets the intent behind the search query breast tissue as being
inappropriate, and therefore does not retrieve any results (see Figure 1(a)). This can be
problematic when children are given a school research assignment on Human Anatomy, as
this would prevent them from locating the right resources. On the other hand, safe-search
has also been known to let unbefitting resources pass through the filter, as it often employs
the use of thresholds set by administrators (Edelman, 2003; Heiler et al., 2017). Consider the
search query urban Google’s safe-search includes among the top 10 retrieved results a site
known to contain profane language (see Figure 1(b)). Being that this inquiry could be related
to the History subject, it is detrimental for children to encounter inappropriate content on the
first Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
Children’s experiences with SEs can affect their motivation to use the Web, their skill to
adequatelyuse resources for their personaland educational interests,as well as their exposure
to information beneficial for enhancing their mental capabilities (Foss et al., 2012). As such, it
is problematic if SEs offer resources that are irrelevant, based on their alignment with the
target user capabilities. A number of research workssuggest that the readability of web text
may be beyond the reading ability and comprehension skill of young users (Bilal,2013; Bilal
and Huang, 2019).From the perspective of children, a resource thatis relevant with respect to
informationneeds expressed in a search querybecomes irrelevant if its contentdoes not align
with their reading skills. Hence, offering resources children can comprehend is essential.
The use of SEs to conduct curriculum-related inquiries may also lead children to
resources that are irrelevant to task objectives–the purpose of the search task assigned.
These resources are often the result of SE domain bias (Ieong et al., 2012; Introna and
Nissenbaum, 2000), as well as the influence of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques
(Lewandowski, 2011; Thurow, 2015), causing the prioritization of resources from popular
domains or those that are treated as relevant to the average population over those that
target the classroom. Unfortunately, these resources can contain opinionated and
non-educative content, thereby making them inapplicable to curriculum-related inquiries.
For example, consider a child that initiates the search using the search query albert einstein
last invention. In response to this inquiry, Bing (with the safe-search filter enabled) ranks a
resource from answers.com at the top of the SERP (see Figure 1(c)). As this site is mostly
89
Empirical
analysis of
SEs’response
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