Navigating Print and Digital Sources: Students’ Selection, Use, and Integration of Multiple Sources Across Mediums

Abstract

Academic tasks frequently require students to effectively process multiple sources across print and digital mediums. Yet, studies of multiple source use have almost exclusively confined examinations to a single medium. In the present study, undergraduate students (n = 50) wore a head-mounted video camera while developing a PowerPoint presentation based on print and digital sources. Students more frequently selected certain digital sources and incorporated more digital sources into their presentations, but students spent more time using and transforming printed sources. However, differences by medium became nonsignificant when controlling for topic knowledge, and topic knowledge moderated some relations. Sequential transition analyses revealed that students with lower versus higher topic knowledge exhibited different patterns of navigation within and across mediums.

Keywords:

• Multiple source use
• multiple documents
• source selection
• sequential transition analysis

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Lauren Singer Trakhman for her assistance with coding.

Additional information

Funding

This research was conducted as a part of the first author’s dissertation at the University of Maryland, College Park, and was funded by a Support Program for Advancing Research and Collaboration (SPARC) Award by the College of Education at the University of Maryland, College Park.