"Man kan ju hitta i princip allt man behöver på Google" : Högstadie- och gymnasielevers informationssökning i digitala medier

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this essay is to examine how high school students (age 13 to 19) search for information on the web and in databases. Furthermore, it aims to look into how critical of sources they are. The questions asked was: how the students search for information in digital media? Which kind of sources do the students use? How they evaluate the information they find? Do they get any education in information retrieval and source evaluation? To answer these questions students were interviewed in groups about their information retrieval behavior. Furthermore two school librarians were interviewed about their experience of the students’ information retrieval.During the interviews it was clear that the students had received quite sparse instructions on the subjects of information retrieval and criticism of the sources. Some students did not even know what the latter was. Their methods for information retrieval were quite simple and, especially in the case of the younger students, without much thought behind. Their main strategy seemed to be Google and Wikipedia.From the interviews with the school librarian I learned that one of the reasons the students do not receive instructions in the above mentioned subjects is the lack of interest from the teachers. The librarians thought that the solution was to build up a stronger relationship with the teachers.