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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 278 – 285

International Conference; Meaning in Translation: Illusion of Precision, MTIP2016, 11-13 May

2016, Riga, Latvia

Relationship of Internet self-efficacy and online search performance

of secondary school teachers
Agnese Karaseva*
University of Tartu, Lossi Str. 36, Tartu, 51003, Estonia; Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences, Cesu Str. 4, Valmiera, LV–4200, Latvia

Abstract

This exploratory mixed-method study aims to examine relationships between secondary school teachers’ perceived Internet self-
efficacy and a vital aspect of e-skills for the knowledge society, namely, information search performance online. Sixteen teachers
of humanities, science and mathematics) were interviewed about their Internet self-efficacy, and then ten of them completed
eleven predefined online search tasks. The results indicate that teachers’ perceived Internet self-efficacy neither correlated with
their actual search performance nor was it related to the search strategies that teachers applied. Teachers over-estimated difficulty
of search tasks before starting a search. Based on the study results, implications for in-service teacher training are discussed.
© 2016
© 2016TheTheAuthors.
Authors.Published
Publishedbyby Elsevier
Elsevier Ltd.Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of MTIP2016.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of MTIP2016
Keywords: E-skills; online search performance; Internet self-efficacy; secondary school teachers.

1. Introduction

The use of digital technology has become an inseparable part of the teacher's work at all levels of education.
Innovative applications of a variety of technological tools, such as mobile phones, TV and the Internet, have opened
up new ways of e-learning to complement traditional classroom face-to-face instruction (Kapenieks et al., 2014).
This ultimately raises the question of teachers` e-skills, particularly their skills in handling various online resources,
especially knowing that most search mechanisms and digital information resources are not created specifically for
educational purposes, i.e. most collections online are fragmentary, and information often varies in quality, accuracy

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +37164207230; fax: +37164207229.
E-mail address: agnese.karaseva@va.lv

1877-0428 © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of MTIP2016
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.09.103
 Agnese Karaseva / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 278 – 285 279

and scope. This mixed-method exploratory study focuses on teachers` online search performance and examines its
relationship to teachers` perceived Internet self-efficacy. Three research questions inform the study:

1) How do teachers of science, mathematics and humanities perceive their Internet self-efficacy?
2) What search strategies do teachers apply in online searching?
3) How are teachers’ perceived Internet self-efficacies related to their actual search performance?

Methodologically this study contributes to the limited number of studies on teachers` Internet skills, which are
not only guided by self-reported data, but also combine this data with an analysis of the actual search behavior of
teachers (see e.g. Albion, 2007, & Rieger, 2009).

2. Theoretical background

2.1. Internet self-efficacy of teachers

The concept of Internet self-efficacy (Compeau, & Higgins, 1995; Hargittai, 2006) is an important extension of
the initial concept of human self-efficacy proposed by Bandura (1982), and suggests that people often do not behave
optimally even if they know very well what to do. This is due to the fact that self-referent thoughts mediate the
relation between knowledge and action (Bandura, 1982). People who find the Internet difficult to use and have little
confidence in their skills to use online resources may be said to have a low level of self-efficacy beliefs.
Despite the fact that in-service teachers report being active users of the Internet (Kabakçı, Fırat, İzmirl, & Kuzu,
2010; Karaseva, Pruulmann-Vengerfeld, & Siibak, 2013) and previous studies have found that teachers use various
online resources as their primary sources of information (Shipman, Bannon, & Nunes-Bufford, 2015), teachers often
evaluate their search experience as being rather unsatisfactory. Unsatisfactory search experiences decrease teachers’
motivation to retrieve information online (Perrault, 2007), and cause teachers to stick to a few educational sites
designed specifically for particular subject teaching (Carlson, & Reidy, 2004), or to give preference to information
sources in print format (Korobili, Malliari, Daniilidou, & Christodoulou, 2011). To build Internet self-efficacy,
positive previous experience and success in search task completion have been found to be the most powerful sources
among teachers (Pan, & Franklin, 2011; Robertson, & Al-Zahrani, 2012). However, high Internet self-efficacy does
not always predict good e-skills and online search performance, as was shown in a study by Albion (2007).

2.2. Online search strategies

Online search outcomes largely depend on the chosen search strategy, which represents the ways people deal
with information online and distinguish between correct and false information (Zhu, Chen, Chen, & Chern, 2011).
Three distinctive online search strategies exist: 1) The top-down strategy, where searchers start with a few general
keywords, and then narrow the search by using more precise keywords until the necessary information is found; 2)
The bottom-up strategy, where searchers look for specific keywords, and then review the returned results until the
needed information is found; 3) The mixed strategy, where searchers combine both top-down and bottom-up
approaches according to their information needs (Navarro-Prieto, Scaife, & Rogers, 1999).
A typical Internet user relies on the top-down strategy by entering two words per query on average (Singer,
Norbisrath, & Lewandowski, 2012). If the result does not satisfy the user`s needs, typically one word is added or
deleted from the initial query to continue the search. This shows that users follow a trial-and-error approach instead
of trying to use advanced search options (Haglund, & Olson, 2008).
It has been argued that high self-efficacy may help an individual to develop better web search strategies and
support information selection and evaluation, facilitating the individual’s performance online (Tsai, & Tsai, 2003).
Low self-efficacy, on the contrary, has proved to be related to fear of failure and not being able to locate the
necessary information (Ford, Miller, & Moss, 2005).
280 Agnese Karaseva / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 278 – 285

3. Methods

Data for the study was generated in the course of a larger school-university action research project that was
implemented at a regional secondary school in Latvia (about 500 students and 45 teachers). The part of the project
reported in the paper aimed to explore relations between teachers’ perceived Internet self-efficacy and their actual
search performance.

3.1. Participants

To select the respondents for the interviews (the first step in the data collection), the vice-headmaster responsible
for ICT development at the partner school was asked to suggest subject teachers with different approaches to digital
technology use and different levels of digital skills. The final sample consisted of 16 female teachers with 11 to 33
years work experience. Nine of them were humanities teachers (languages, music, and arts), and seven were math
and science teachers (mathematics, geography, chemistry, biology, and physics).
For the second step of data collection, purposive sampling was applied to select participants who represented
different disciplines, varying work experience at school, and various levels of perceived Internet self-efficacy. Each
participant was individually invited to take part in the second step of data collection and scheduled an individual
search session. Table 1 gives an overview of the ten participants’ profiles, including their Internet self-efficacy
beliefs. For anonymity reasons, the school subjects taught by the participants are not indicated; instead participants
are identified as teachers of humanities (H) and teachers of science and mathematics subjects (Sc).

Table 1. Overview of participants’ profiles, including Internet self-efficacy beliefs.

No Subject Years at school Perceived Internet self-efficacy
1 H 20 high
2 Sc 28 medium
3 H 22 low
4 Sc 33 low
5 H 11 medium
6 H 31 high
7 H 28 low
8 Sc 21 high
9 Sc 17 high
10 Sc 28 medium

3.2. Data collection

To determine participants’ perceived Internet self-efficacy, individual semi-structured interviews were

conducted, in which teachers were asked to reflect on seven aspects mentioned in previous literature (e.g.
Torkzadeh, & Van Dyke, 2001): confidence in browsing the Internet, being able to stay focused on the search target,
being able to define the appropriate keywords, understanding how search engines work, confidence in handling
information in various formats, confidence in being able to distinguish useful, trustworthy resources, and, finally,
feeling satisfied with the results of past searches.
In the second step of data collection, selected participants were asked to complete eleven pre-defined online
search tasks (see Appendix). To provide equal opportunities for study participants representing a broad range of
disciplines, and ensure the internal comparability of the study, only general knowledge search questions were
included in the final list. All of the answers were to be found by the time of the study somewhere at public websites
in Latvian. Participants were given an unlimited amount of time to complete the tasks. The longest search lasted for
80 minutes, the shortest for 38 minutes. All search sessions were recorded, and the screen records and transaction
log files were later analyzed by two researchers. Participants also filled in questionnaires in which they responded
 Agnese Karaseva / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 278 – 285 281

“yes” or “no” to four statements: one regarding the complexity of each search task, two statements regarding the
required effort to find the necessary information, and one the participants` abilities to find correct information (the
questionnaire was originally developed by Singer et al., 2012). Short semi-structured post-search interviews were
conducted to capture participants’ reflections on the search process, and their satisfaction with the search outcomes.

3.3. Data analysis

The interview transcripts were analyzed by applying the open coding method, followed by a close reading of
sentences and phrases which presented various themes related to teachers’ Internet self-efficacy. Based on the
interview analysis, the sample was split into three distinct groups: teachers with high perceived Internet self-efficacy
(n=7), medium perceived Internet self-efficacy (n=6) and low perceived Internet self-efficacy (n=3).
From the transaction logs, screen recordings, and questionnaires that were produced in the second step of the data
collection, results on a range of parameters were calculated (see Table 2). The video files were reviewed by two
researchers and the following parameters were enumerated for the purposes of further analysis: number of
keywords, number of keywords in every query, total number of queries, total number of web pages opened.
Spearman`s Rank Correlation was used to calculate the relationship between these parameters and the level of
teachers’ self-efficacy. The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test was applied to determine the statistical significance of the
difference in how teachers rated the search tasks before and after the searches in the questionnaires.

4. Results

4.1. Teacher Internet self-efficacy

The interview analysis indicated that the three participants with low perceived Internet self-efficacy were the
most dissatisfied with their search experience and mainly related their dissatisfaction to their inability to choose
appropriate key-words. They performed simple fact-finding searches, not feeling capable of more sophisticated
information retrieval operations. Teachers also admitted that they did not understand how search engines generated
results. One of them had noticed that longer search queries helped to reduce the number of results returned by search
engines. During the interview she said that usually she wrote as many keywords as she could think of in the search
box hoping that the search engine would understand her information needs.
Teachers with perceived medium Internet self-efficacy seemed rather satisfied with their search experience, but
they shared concerns about their abilities to evaluate the trustworthiness of sources. They also admitted that their
search skills could be improved, especially in performing more involved exploratory searches. Teachers in this
group seemed to search a lot for video content that could be used as illustrative material during lessons. Some
teachers with medium self-efficacy were also actively involved in digital material sharing with other teachers. This
informal networking seemed to be an important factor influencing teachers’ self-efficacy. They all reported that they
had learned their search skills without any formal training, by the trial-and-error method.
Teachers with high Internet self-efficacy seemed to be very advanced Internet users. Some of them had actually
taught informatics to high school students for short periods at the end of 1990s, when computers became widespread
in Latvian schools but there was a shortage of computer science teachers. They all had participated in technology
and Internet-related teacher training. Teachers in this group reported always being able to find the necessary
information and also seemed to be actively involved in digital material sharing and exchange with other teachers.

4.2. Search strategies and search performance

All ten participants who did the search tasks, independent of their Internet self-efficacy levels, applied the top-
down information search strategy. To begin a search, in most cases the Google search engine was used. Only three
participants used the “known website” strategy, one of them (participant 1) opened five websites directly, the other
two participants opened two direct websites each.
The video file analysis indicated that teachers did not trust the snippets that appeared on the search engine result
page under the result page title. Even if the necessary information appeared in short excerpts under the result page
282 Agnese Karaseva / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 278 – 285

titles, all teachers, except one, clicked on the links anyway. Another common trait for the participants was to consult
Wikipedia to double-check the result after they had already found the correct information somewhere else. Most
active users of Wikipedia turned out to be the participants with the best scores: the participant with the second best
result (participant 5) looked in 10 different Wikipedia pages, while the participant with the best score (participant 6)
consulted this resource 14 times. None of the search participants found correct answers to all eleven questions. The
best searcher had ten correct and one answer which was partly correct (see Table 2).

Table 2. Participants’ search performance and rank, based on the number of correct answers.
Internet Total number Average number Total
self- of keywords of keywords in a number of Total number of
No Subject efficacy Score Rank used query queries pages opened
6 H high 10.5 1 66 3 22 46
5 H medium 10 2 125 4.3 29 43
9 Sc high 10 3 93 3.4 27 41
8 Sc high 9 4 67 3.9 17 24
2 Sc medium 8 5 61 4.1 15 50
1 H high 7.5 6 48 3 16 42
3 H low 7 7 78 3.5 22 13
7 H low 7 8 56 4.3 13 25
10 Sc medium 7 9 65 4.1 16 46
4 Sc low 6.5 10 87 3.3 26 62

4.3. Relationships between self-efficacy and search performance

Applying Spearman’s Rank Correlations, no statistically significant correlation was found between teachers’
search scores and their perceived Internet self-efficacy. Therefore it is clear that in this particular sample the
performance of teachers with high and low self-efficacy in the search tasks was not statistically different.
The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test indicated that there was a statistically significant difference in how teachers
rated the task difficulty and required effort prior to and after conducting the search (p < 0.05). As Table 3 shows, all
participants rated all tasks prior to the search session as being more complicated and requiring more effort than they
did after the search was completed. Only the participant with the best search result (participant 6) seemed to be able
to estimate almost correctly the task difficulty, but even she changed her mind after the tasks were completed.

Table 3. Summary of the questionnaire results.

answers “yes” prior to answers “yes” after the
No Subject Self-efficacy Rank search (%) search (%)
6 H high 1 80 86
5 H medium 2 33 75
9 Sc high 3 66 90
8 Sc high 4 27 89
2 Sc medium 5 66 100
1 H high 6 57 77
3 H low 7 0 75
7 H low 8 30 61
10 Sc medium 9 38 100
4 Sc low 10 23 75
 Agnese Karaseva / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 278 – 285 283

Task 7 was rated as the most difficult and as requiring the most effort prior to the search by all participants. In
this task participants were asked to find the title of a novel from a text fragment that was given. Questions 9 and 5,
where most participants failed to find the correct answer, prior to the task were rated as rather difficult: (29% of
answers were “yes” on task 9 and 22% were “yes” on task 5). As the post-search interviews revealed, several
participants started searching thinking that they would not be able to find the correct information. For example,
participant 3 responded “no” to all statements before the search session, but, after completing the tasks, she
responded “yes” to 75% of the statements. In the short post-search interview, she explained that this difference was
due to the fact that she had never searched for answers to such questions, and her initial assumption was that she
would fail on all tasks.

5. Discussion

As the analysis of semi-structured interviews showed, teachers with high/medium Internet self-efficacy were
satisfied with their past search experience and were always able to find what they needed online, compared to
teachers with low self-efficacy beliefs. Low self-efficacy of teachers was related to frustrating previous experience
and failure to find necessary information. The findings are similar to results of previous studies of teachers’
experience as a powerful source of Internet self-efficacy (Pan, & Franklin, 2011; Robertson, & Al-Zahrani, 2012).
Analysis of the interviews also showed that teachers with high self-efficacy were the only ones who had received
formal training on information retrieval. A study by Chen (2008) confirmed that teachers who had participated in
technology-related training were more willing to try innovative methods and integrate technology into their
teaching. Interview analysis indicated that teachers lacked opportunities to network and exchange information and
experience in handling online resources. Only a few participants claimed to be actively involved in informal
networking with colleagues and sharing their experience. Others relied on occasional contacts, or got new ideas in
annual teacher conferences, etc. Thus, limited opportunities for teachers to compare their experiences and skills in
online information retrieval with colleagues seems to be one reason the teachers’ self-efficacy varied so much,
especially among humanities teachers, who unfavorably compared their Internet skills with skills of their students.

5.1. Search strategy and search performance

In general, all participants, even teachers with high self-efficacy, applied the top-down strategy (Navarro-Prieto
et al. 1999). This search strategy is said to be characteristic of novice Internet users (Thatcher, 2008), which none of
the research participants actually were: they all had at least several years` computer experience. There are two
possible explanations for this: firstly, it is possible that participants applied this approach because all tasks were
defined as “known item” questions (Marchionini, 2006), and therefore participants believed that this strategy was
the appropriate approach to find the answers. Secondly, this may have been a search strategy that teachers had
developed by trial and error (Andreassen, 2012; Mansourian, 2008), since only a few of them had received formal
training in information retrieval online. The reliance on the trial-and-error method was notable: most of the teachers
if the returned results did not seem satisfactory added or deleted one or two words in the next query instead of
changing the whole query or trying to use Boolean operators or other limiters, which would be characteristic of
advanced searchers (Haglund, & Olson, 2008).
Similar to participants in other studies (Jansen and Spink, 2003), most of the teachers in the current study
reviewed the first three returned results and mainly stayed on the first result page: only two participants opened a
second result page, but they did not click on any links there. Together with the finding that the number of keywords
per query in this study was slightly higher than in other studies (e.g. Singer et al., 2012), this indicates a great belief
and reliance on the search engine`s capacity to interpret the search query correctly and present the most relevant
results at the top of the search result list.

5.2. Relationships between self-efficacy and search performance

The result analysis indicated teachers’ self-efficacy did not correlate with their search performance, and thus the
results are in line with previous studies where inconsistency was found between e-skills perception and the actual
284 Agnese Karaseva / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 278 – 285

search results (Albion, 2007). As the interview analysis revealed, participants with low self-efficacy admitted not
having sufficient ability in information retrieval, which led to the limited use of the Internet resources. As the study
showed, all participants, independent of their self-efficacy level, applied the top-down strategy, and none of them
was actually able to find answers to all questions. These findings indicate the potentially misguiding role of self-
efficacy and its implications for teachers’ online practices: based on their efficacy beliefs, teachers receive varying
benefits from the Internet. Those with high self-confidence apparently feel more comfortable online and thus make
better use of the myriad of online resources simply because they believe in their search capabilities (Korobili et al.,
2011). The present study had also similar results to Singer et al. (2012), who found that good searchers were not
significantly better in estimating the task difficulty and the effort that would be required to complete a task. As the
Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test showed, there was a statistically significant difference in how teachers evaluated tasks
prior to the search session and after finishing the search. As post-search interviews indicated, almost all teachers in
the current study felt insecure before starting the search and had lower confidence levels simply because they had
been asked to search for information somewhere out of their “comfort zones”, i.e. their subject areas.

6. Conclusions and implications for teacher in-service training

The study indicated that the teachers’ perceived Internet self-efficacy might not correlate with their actual search
performance, and was not related to the search strategies that teachers apply online. Another important finding is
that all teachers, independent on their self-efficacy beliefs, over-estimated the difficulty of search tasks before
starting a search. This may serve as an interesting starting point for future studies with a more representative sample.
Regarding the implications for teacher in-service training, previous research indicates that teacher training is an
important determinant of Internet use (Chen, 2008). For the school where the data was collected, results of this study
provided a basis for designing a training program that focused on Internet search techniques and strategic
approaches to information retrieval. Future post-training analysis will help evaluate whether teachers have acquired
more advanced online search skills.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to the Tiger Leap Foundation in Estonia for financing the study “Effect of teachers’ ICT
use activity on pupils’ knowledgeable use of technology” and is grateful to the Estonian Research Council for the
support of the project PUT44. I thank also my colleague Vineta Silkāne at Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences
in Latvia for helping with statistical calculations.

Appendix A. List of the pre-defined search tasks

1) When and where was the current president of Latvia Andris Bērziņš born?
2) How many Euros can you get for 1000 units of currency used in Czech Republic?
3) You want to rebuild your garage. For doing this you need a special building permission. Is it possible to apply for
this permission electronically in your municipality?
4) Where is the oldest wooden building located in your town? What is this building used for nowadays?
5) Find a website online with a step-by-step instructions on how to paste pictures in a PPT presentation!
6) Which country in Asia has this flag? (picture of the flag provided)
7) This is a fragment of a novel by Estonian writer Jaan Kaplinski. What is the title of the novel? (A paragraph of 10
lines of text was given)
8) You want to organize a trip for 10 teachers to the neighbour town (the name of the town was given). In order to
plan the program, you select four places to visit, including one museum, one art gallery, one site where you can do
some practical educational activities, and one place for lunch. You will travel by public transport. Calculate the
budget that will be needed for such a trip!
9) Find all the member states of European Union with at least two official languages!
10) What is the name of Latvian sportsman who has participated in nine Olympic Games and, before Latvia
regained its independence, has won a world record in the European championship in Zagreb which is still unbeaten?
 Agnese Karaseva / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 278 – 285 285

11) This is fragment of a picture by Latvian painter Imants Lancmanis. What is the name of the picture? (Illustration
omitted for copyright reasons)

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