Meta-analyzer: A web-based environment for analyzing student information searching behaviors

The rapid progress of computer and network technologies has attracted educational researchers to study the strategies and the effects of applying information technology in learning activities. Although previous research demonstrated the benefits of applying information technologies to learning process, its difficulty was also reveled. One of the major difficulties is owing to the lack of a learning environment that can record the learning portfolio of using information technologies in education, such that the teacher can analyze and evaluate the learning performance of students, and hence the teaching strategies can be adjusted accordingly. In this paper, we propose a web-search learning environment based on meta-index approach, which is able to assist the teachers in analyzing student learning behaviors of using search engines for problem solving. An experiment on 161 K4 students has been conducted to evaluate the benefits of this approach. Experimental results showed that the novel approach is able to assist the teachers to acquire more about the learning status of students, and hence more constructive suggestions can be given accordingly.