Search-as-learning research has emphasized the need to better support searchers when learning about complex topics online. Prior work in the learning sciences has shown that effective self-regulated learning (SRL), in which goals are a central function, is critical to improving learning outcomes. This dissertation investigates the influence of…

Purpose: Seeking online bilingual scientific information is a key aspect of bilingual scientific Web literacy -- abilities to engage critically with science on the Web using two languages. This study aims to determine whether factors such as age, education major, gender and type of school attended at secondary level (monolingual, bilingual,…

Purpose: This methodological study describes a technique for extracting information from deidentified electronic health records (EHRs) to identify occurrences of permanent unilateral hearing loss (UHL) and associated educational comorbidities. Method: This was an exploratory methodological study utilizing approximately 3.3 million de-identified…

Research has shown how important is for young people to acquire digital competencies that are necessary to successfully participate in society. Still, it has been reported that university students display poor digital competencies and that inequalities resulting from demographic and social factors persist even among young people who have managed…

Systematic reviews are vital instruments for researchers to understand broad trends in a field and synthesize evidence on the effectiveness of interventions in addressing specific issues. The quality of a systematic review depends critically on having comprehensively surveyed all relevant literature on the review topic. In addition to database…

Effectively learning to evaluate sources, especially when conducting online research, is an essential skill for middle-grade students. This article argues that supporting students in learning to evaluate sources must involve using critical consciousness skills to do so, or the evaluation is incomplete. In the article, the authors expand the…

Systematic reviewers are advised to search trials registers to minimise risk of reporting biases. However, there has been little research on the impact of searching trials registers on the results of meta-analyses. We aimed to evaluate the impact of searching clinical trials registers for systematic reviews of pharmaceutical or non-pharmaceutical…

An emerging body of corpus-based genre analysis studies has examined the connection between different types of formulaic language and rhetorical moves in various genres of academic writing. The current study extends this body of research into the understudied genre of narrative stories and the understudied phraseological unit of lexical…

Predicting quitting rules is critical in visual search: Did I search enough for a cancer nodule in a breast X-ray or a threat in a baggage airport scanner? This study examines the predictive power of search organization indexes like best-r, mean ITD, PAO, or intersection rates as optimal criteria to leave a search in foraging (looking for several…

When responding to queries for information, people control the grain size (precision-coarseness) of the information they communicate based on competing goals of accuracy and informativeness (Goldsmith & Koriat, "Behavioral and Brain Sciences," 1999, 19, 167). Two experiments examined whether the act of searching for answers using the…

Background: Searching the literature and screening studies are two key stages to build a strong foundation for a quality systematic review. Low-quality handsearching and citation chasing processes may lead to missing relevant studies, while low-quality study screening may lead to human errors and a lengthy process (Haddaway et al., 2022; Zhang…

Purpose: Universities play an important role in the promotion and implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This study aims to examine the visibility of information about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on the websites of Spanish and major international universities, by means of a quantitative and qualitative analysis…

Citation indices providing information on backward citation (BWC) and forward citation (FWC) links are essential for literature discovery, bibliographic analysis, and knowledge synthesis, especially when language barriers impede document identification. However, the suitability of citation indices varies. While some have been analyzed, the…

Objective: Factors contributing to the obesity epidemic have powerful effects on people who are frequently exposed to the extensive advertisement of unhealthy foods. This study aimed to examine how consumers' attitudes towards health and nutrition-related (HNR) claims in food advertisements affected their healthy food choice (HFC) and how online…

Systematic literature reviews are common in social research for integrating and synthesising existing research. This paper argues that the outcomes of such reviews are affected by the choice of bibliographic databases. It presents evidence of substantial variation across three large electronic databases (Scopus, Web of Science and EBSCO) in a…