Undergraduates' experiences of using the World Wide Web as an information resource

This paper describes a study we have made of undergraduates' experiences of using the World Wide Web as an adjunct information resource. The focus of the research was not on students using information provided by academic sta ff nor on any form of computer-aided learning, but rather, on the informati on sought and used by students which was Freely available on the Web. In a series of interviews, 12 undergraduate students related their experiences o f using the Web as a resource to support their studies. The qualitative ana lysis of these interviews identified a number of recurring themes. The emot ions that were revealed by the students ranged from the delight of successf ully finding valuable information to concerns about over-use in the future. Some of the other issues that are also discussed in this paper relate to t he students' experiences of learning to use the Web, its perceived value, f rustrations that arose, worries over the validity of information, the seren dipity effect and the influence of lecturers.