There’s a creepy guy on the other end at Google: tweens’ mental models of Google’s inner workings

Kodama, Christie; St. Jean, Beth; Taylor, Natalie Greene; Subramaniam, Mega

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/89370 Copy

Description

Title

There’s a creepy guy on the other end at Google: tweens’ mental models of Google’s inner workings

Author(s)

Kodama, Christie; St. Jean, Beth; Taylor, Natalie Greene; Subramaniam, Mega

Issue Date

2016-03-15

Keyword(s)

• mental models
• Google
• tweens
• search engines
• information search/seeking

Abstract

Twenty-six middle school students who attend the HackHealth weekly after-school program (hackhealth.umd.edu) were asked to draw a picture of how they think Google works. Through a combination of open and axial coding, each drawing was assigned one or more codes from a 14-item coding dictionary, as well as one or more entries from a 6-item typology. We found that students’ drawings commonly featured computing equipment and/or physical or virtual connections, such as wires or satellite dishes. Additionally, some form of anthropomorphism was a central feature in many students’ drawings. In fact, 14 (54%) drawings were assigned to the typology entry “Google as people.” In this poster, we will share a selection of students’ drawings, as well as our central findings from this research.

Publisher

iSchools

Series/Report Name or Number

IConference 2016 Proceedings

Type of Resource

text

Language

eng

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/89370

DOI

https://doi.org/10.9776/16531

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2016 is held by the authors. Copyright permissions, when appropriate, must be obtained directly from the authors.

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