Survey of Elementary School Students’ Usage of Dictionaries: An Analysis of Dictionary Contents and the Differences in Searching Behavior Based on the Dictionary Medium

Abstract

We investigated elementary school students’ (grades 3 and 5) usage of dictionaries to look up words in textbook materials. An analysis of the words in the text that students did not understand, and had searched for in the dictionary, revealed that while students at a high academic level often searched for words that their teacher would want them to learn, other students often searched for commonly used words. By evaluating how the searching method differed between paper and electronic dictionaries, we found that the speed at which students (at all academic levels) searched for words was higher when they used electronic dictionaries. An analysis of how the searched terms were listed in the dictionary revealed that 40% of the words were considered too difficult for students to understand. An assessment of how the students felt showed that many preferred using electronic dictionaries to paper dictionaries.