CHAPTER FOUR FINDINGS
Factor 2: Feature of online information
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while selecting an English reading material on the Internet, they would choose the one to read based on its use of English vocabulary and its level of difficulty. Some of them thought that they would not read the texts with a lot of new vocabulary or difficult words:
P2: I choose the websites that provide easy and plain words for me to comprehend.
R: What do you mean?
P2: Like some online articles are written with very difficult words that are not related to our lives, so they are not easy to read. Then I would give up reading and jump to another easier website. (SG#12)
P1: Also, if the use of words is too difficult or hard to understand, I won’t keep reading it. Like the words Times use are really hard to understand.
P2/P3: I think the words New York Times use are difficult, too.
P1: Right. I think the reading content in New York Times is so America style that I cannot understand what it means.
P2: Yes, I think it involves a lot of American cultures. (SG#1)
Font size of the word (7% with 4 responses) and size of reading file (4% with 2 responses) are the last two factors affecting students’ choices of reading materials.
The participants pointed out that they would choose to read the text with appropriate font size of the words. As for the influence of size of reading file, the participants mentioned they would lose their patience to wait for getting into the website if the reading file is so big, as stated in the following:
P2: If it takes a long time get into the website, I will give it up and go to another one. (FG#16)
Factor 2: Feature of online information
With respect to the factor from the feature of online information, it takes 23% of all the responses. From the interview data, the characteristics of online information can be classified into three subcategories: reliability and authority (48%), novelty (10%), and catchiness and sensation (42%).
Among three subcategories of features of online information, the feature of
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reliability and authority takes the highest percentage (47% with 14 responses). The students said that their Internet reading selection relies on whether the information is credible and where the source of information is from. Therefore, most of them reported that they would go to the websites belonging to governments, organizations, institutions, or schools. Listed below are students’ responses in this regard:
P2: I usually examine website sources. Like I usually see whether the website addresses are ended with gov, org, edu or not. I think the information from these formal and official websites is much more reliable. (FG#17)
P3: I usually judge the website source. For example, I usually see if the website belongs to a person or an organization or a company like government or official website. So, it still depends on my goal. If I need more professional information, I won’t go to the personal website because usually it may provide biased information. (SG#5)
P2: I would like to know the source of the website. Like if I want to know some information about global warming which may be from three rescores, such as Discovery, Scientist, and others’ blogs, I will choose Discovery and Scientist because they have their brand names. It is more reliable to read them. (SG#4) Interestingly, two of the students raised an issue that even information derived from some supposedly reliable websites, such as Wikipedia, remain subjected to the readers’ screening by reading the warning sign displayed on the webpage. The respondents said that Wikipedia would show a sign that indicates whether the information it shows needs further verification or additional citations. The following quotes are from the interviews:
P3: But sometimes even a good [supposedly reliable] website such as Wikipedia may contain problems. Sometimes it warns you this article is cited from other sources so its reliability needs to be confirmed.
P1: Right. The information on the webpage sometimes comes with a yellow line telling you that this piece of information is not complete and not that reliable, so more improvement should be made. (SG#5)
The second influential feature of online information is catchiness and sensation (42% with 12 responses). The factor of catchiness and sensation of online information refers to whether the information is catchy or sensational enough to arouse the
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participants’ interest in reading. The participants made the following remarks:
P2: It (The selection of online reading materials) depends on whether the topics are interesting or not. If the topic is interesting, but the content is boring, then I stop reading. (FG#15)
P3: I usually choose the topic interesting to me, such as topic related to chocolate.
P4: Me too. I also choose catchy or crucial topics to read. I think in international news there are more special topics that I have never thought about. For instance, last time I read an article about eating chocolate to save our environment. (FG#13)
P1: Also, catchy topics or headings can draw my attention to read it. (FG#9) P1: I like choosing to read exciting and sensational topics. (SG#3)
Novelty of online information, denoting that whether the online information is up-to-date or new, takes the last place (10% with 3 responses) among the three features of online information that affected the participants’ reading selection. The following responses exemplify this factor of online reading selection:
P1: Usually, I would like to read online because there is updated information or entertainment information. (SG#4)
P3: I usually choose the latest websites or the newly updated ones. (SG#7) P2: It depends on the updated date because I want to find the updated or latest
information. (SG#12) Factor 3: Users’ task purpose
23% of all the participants reported that their selection of English reading materials on the Internet depends on their different task purposes. Under this main theme, two subcategories related to purpose were generated: information relativity (90% with 27 responses) and schoolwork (10% with 3 responses).
Twenty-seven participants commented that their online reading selection depends on the information relativity, referring to whether the information is related to the target searching purpose. Most of them provided their search skills to obtain the most relevant information through the Internet. Four types of search skills were found. First of all, some of them mentioned that they usually search for information with more
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keywords so as to narrow down the number of search results, as shown in the following quotes:
P2: Moreover, I usually type long keywords in an attempt to find the most correspondent information. (SG#12)
P2: I usually use more keywords while typing searching for information through search engines to narrow down the scope of information. It is easier to find the information I want. (FG#13)
P3: I usually use the clear keywords because I can find the most related
information. So, I usually type author along with its literature work. (FG#16) The second reported search skill is to capitalize on the cached link displayed on the search results list, as illustrated in a participant’s remark:
P2: If I look for certain information, I use the cached function to show the locations where the keywords hide. Then I just read the part with the cached keywords. (FG#9)
The cached link is served to highlight all the seeking keywords embedded in the reading contents to facilitate the online reader’ query for the desired information. As a result, by means of clicking on the cached link, the online reader can access a
webpage’s cached version and thus they can be led to the information much more pertinent to their seeking target. The cached link5 shown on the result page is illustrated below:
Figure 3. The cached link shown on the result page
The third search skill is to merely choose the frequently-visited websites shown on the results page. Some participants expressed that they valued the top five websites
5 The graph of the cached link shown on the result page is excerpted from Google Guide at:
http://www.googleguide.com/cached_pages.html
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from the search result or they selected the reading materials from the hotlist provided on the webpage. The following are statements made by the respondents:
P1: Also, I select what I want to read from the hotlist, too. For example, there is a hotlist on YouTube which tells you which video is now gaining the most popularity from the Internet viewers. (FG#8)
P2: I usually select the first five website links from results page because they show the most relevant information I am looking for. Besides, I can’t read through all website links listed in the results. (FG#7)
The last search skill is to scan through the introduction to each website from the results page. The participants said that before diving into the reading materials, they usually read through the introduction of the website to judge whether it contains the relevant information they are searching for, as evidenced from their interviews as follows:
P1: Once the search engine generates the results I usually read through the website titles and introductions to the websites to see if there is any relevant information related to what I am searching for. If the title is too long, I don’t choose it. (FG#13)
P2: Besides, as far as search engine is concerned, I usually read the introduction to the website after the search results page comes out. Then I read through it to see if there is any keyword I am looking for. (FG#8)
Doing schoolwork (10% with 3 responses) is the second purpose that influences the participants’ selection of online reading materials. 3 students reported that their reading choices depend on their schoolwork assigned by their teachers, as shown in their interview comments:
P2: It depends on the syllabus schedule. Like, I follow the literature syllabus schedule to decide what I am going to read on the Internet. (SG#3) P2: It depends on the topic that is needed urgently for reports. (SG#4)
P3: It still depends on my goal. Like, if I need more professional information, I won’t go to the personal website because usually it may provide biased information. But if I need to read for entertainment, I would like to choose something more fun and interesting. (SG#5)