Ten fifth-grade students were randomly selected from a class required to find three sources of information on a sports figure for a class report. They were interviewed after selection of a figure and during their research, which was conducted at home and in both the school and public libraries. They were also observed carrying out searches on the school's computers. Students were asked what they were doing and why. A second interview was carried out during the third week of the information-gathering process.
Results are an analysis of field notes and transcripts of recordings.
Students were able to articulate their relevance criteria and used titles, notes fields, abstracts, Internet summaries, and skimming techniques to evaluate the initial relevance of material retrieved. Topicality is the prime criterion in textual material. The use of topicality as a criteria early in the process gives way somewhat to the interesting criteria in the second interview. A longitudinal sample was utilized by Szava-Kovats to review 100 years of The Physical Review, yielding 4,200 papers and 84,000 formal references. A separate review of early issues shows a possible occurrence in 1897, but the first clear occurrence in 1901.