Wikipedia and undergraduate research trajectories

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to analyze undergraduate students’ use of Wikipedia bibliographies. The study has implications for Wikipedia as a “discovery tool” of library collections, library instructional practices and understanding the complex ecology of students’ research processes. Design/methodology/approach – Thirty undergraduate students were recruited from introductory English writing classes. A controlled survey was conducted in Qualtrics®, including the following sections: pre and post test of students’ understanding of authority/quality of sources; tasks analyzing participants’ choices for further research after reading a Wikipedia article; and students’ determination of the authority/quality of sources in Wikipedia reference pages, using an adapted version of the Turnitin® Source Educational Evaluation Rubric. Findings – The investigator found that students were unlikely to follow references they found in bibliographies of Wikipedia pages, unless instructed to do so. This was expres...