Teachers’ and Students’ Perceptions of Online Research Skills: An Exploratory Study in South Lebanese Schools

Abstract

Studies showed that middle school students misuse the Internet sources for reading and writing purposes though they are skillful at online personal communication. Eventually, this led to the emergence of copy-paste trends in students’ written work. In this paper, we aimed at exploring 8^th grade teachers’ and students’ perceptions about the factors that predict the copy-paste trend in Lebanese schools, and the extent to which these perceptions are interrelated. 172 students were surveyed and eight teachers interviewed at 3 private schools in the south of Lebanon. Results indicated that students had limited Internet skills despite their intensive Internet use and teachers lacked essential instructional practices to help students acquire basic skills to avoid plagiarism. Proposed recommendations included teachers’ inservice training and curriculum review to integrate essentials of ethical writing.

Keywords: copy-paste trend, online research skills, Internet efficacy, middle school, ESL