• Journal of Science Education
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.49-55
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to examine how online knowledge-based search service is being used by students in science education. Reviewing information and summarizing data are important parts in scientific inquiry. As more and more information is available online, how to review and summarize online information for scientific inquiry also becomes an issue. In this study, we examined one of the popular online knowledge-based search services to see what kinds of information in secondary school chemistry are mostly sought and how reliable those information could be. The result indicated that users mostly seek scientific explanations and problem solving but about 30% of provided information appeared to be incorrect. It implicates that it is necessary to pay attention for teaching students how to obtain, evaluate, and communicate online information in science education to enhance students' ability for scientific inquiry.