Academic information searching and learning by use of Keenious and Google Scholar: a pilot study

Abstract

This paper reports a pilot study on academic information searching and learning by use of Keenious and Google Scholar. The pilot study aims to evaluate the test design, and to learn about participants’ perceptions about Keenious and Google Scholar as searching and learning systems. The pilot consists of a convenience sample of 8 students. They searched Keenious and Google Scholar in opposite order to neutralise for order effect and identified research articles of relevance to their term paper. Hereafter they curated a reading list based on their search results. After searching and curation they completed questionnaires about their experiences. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the search performance results including the scale ratings. The participants perceive Keenious slightly more positively compared to Google Scholar as a system that inspires for learning and the retrieval of serendipitous results. Further, Keenious and Google Scholar are perceived to complement each other by retrieving different relevant results. The pilot study demonstrates a sufficient test design. Further, the importance of counterbalancing the search systems was confirmed. The participants will be introduced to Keenious prior to testing to neutralise the bias of the participants being more familiar with Google Scholar.