High School Students' Use of Databases: Results of a National Delphi Study

A four-round Delphi study with a panel of 25 library media specialists (LMSs) from 22 secondary schools across the United States was aimed at: (1) identifying high school students’ most significant difficulties in using online and CDROM databases; (2) suggesting design elements and curricular and instructional strategies for making these tools more valuable as learning resources; and (3) determining the most significant policy issues related to the use of electronic information resources in schools. Findings are based on (1) panelists’ ratings of 234 items on Like+type scales and (2) panelists’ selections and rankings of a subset of items from that larger set. The conceptual framework for the study was derived from instructional systems design (ISD), a discipline outside the traditional focus of information science research, but one that has considerable potential for offering additional insights to the field. The results confirm that the major issues related to schools’ use of online and CD-ROM databases involve their role in students’ development of the higher-order thinking skills necessary to plan, design, and conduct competent and credible research in the electronic information age.