Date of Graduation
Spring 2022
Degree
Master of Science in Psychology
Department
Psychology
Committee Chair
Donald Fischer
Abstract
The internet has become the go-to place for those seeking information. The strategies that people employ when seeking information differ (Tsai, 2005), and critical thinking is related to these differences (Zhang et al., 2015). Although people use different strategies to find information on the internet, there are virtually no formal, easy to use tools for assessing these differences. Wansing and Wood (2020) developed the Internet Search Strategies Assessment (ISSA) for this purpose. A preliminary study revealed that the scale had four factors as hypothesized, but the measure did not correlate as well as expected with other theoretically related scales. This study used a multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) design with undergraduate college students (N=126) to further explore convergent and discriminant validity evidence for ISSA. A combination of implicit and explicit measures were used. Results provided some evidence supporting the construct validity for two of the hypothesized factors. However, the other two factors did not correlate well with any of the measures in the study.
Keywords
internet search, critical-thinking, personality, implicit association test, factor analysis
Subject Categories
Other Psychology
Copyright
© Joseph A. Wansing
Recommended Citation
Wansing, Joseph A., "Validation of an Internet Search Strategies Assessment" (2022). MSU Graduate Theses. 3745.
https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/3745
