This paper explores the cognitive processes and online behaviors in which preservice teachers engage when seeking educational resources for classroom instruction. Participants used graphical and keyword search interfaces provided by a large-scale digital library (NSDL.org) and a keyword search interface from a large, commercial search engine (Google.com) to complete searches for online materials that would support classroom instruction. Overall, findings from the current work indicate that a graphical search interface can support comprehension by providing a conceptual organization of domain content during digital search and evaluation. Findings also show that digital libraries allow users to offload processing related to resource trustworthiness, thereby increasing cognitive capacity for other purposes.
A rubric for representing the educational content of digital resources was developed and tested in an experiment with preservice teachers. The ADMIRE (Analyzing Digital Materials In Resources for Education) rubric codes 11 t ypes of digital content organized into five major categories; codes and categories are drawn from learning science and instructional research. The ADMIRE rubric was used to analyze the types of content present in digital resources that preservice teachers accepted or rejected for classroom use during instructional planning. Results show that the ADMIRE rubric provides a useful method to understand teachers' success in online search and the types of educational content that they value during instructional planning.
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