A multiple-case study on students' sourcing activities in a group task

Students need to apply evaluation strategies to find relevant and trustworthy information when completing open-inquiry tasks on the Internet. One such strategy, sourcing, implies attention to information about the sources of documents. This multiple-case study investigates how three small groups of secondary school students solved an open-inquiry task. The task took place after extensive instruction on how to benefit from the use of source information when selecting, reading, and integrating information. The multiple-case study aimed to ascertain how the taught sourcing skills were reflected in the different groups' sourcing activities. Data consisted of observations, interviews, and documents. Results show that groups performed more sourcing activities than they displayed in their oral presentation. Though the integration of information from multiple documents was less prominent, teachers valued it highly. The findings suggest that instructions in school should not focus on the performance of sourcing activities but on discussions where students compare their selections and integration of information.