Survey of UT Students

In the Spring of 1998 we conducted a brief survey of UT students enrolled in English 306. Most of these students were freshman or sophomores beginning to conduct research for class writing assignments. Most students had not yet received a library instruction session while at UT. Their responses gave us an idea of the knowledge, skills and interests of a random sample of lower-division undergraduates on our campus.

We received 411 responses to our survey, of those:
239 students (58%) use the Internet at least once a day
110 students (27%) use the Internet at least once a week
45 students (11%) use the Internet at least once a month
17 students ( 4%) use the Internet rarely or never

Here are some of the results of the survey:
Did you use the Internet before UT?
73% of all students said Yes.
27% of all students said No.

What do you use the Internet for?
91% of all students said they use email.
40% of all students said they use chat.
20% of all students said they use listservs.
15% of all students said they use newsgroups.
15% of all students said they use real time audio or video.

How often do you find what you want on the Internet?
87% of daily Internet users said always or frequently.
83% of weekly Internet users said frequently or sometimes.
86% of monthly Internet users said frequently or sometimes.
53% of seldom Internet users said sometimes or never.

Have you ever cited a web page?
54% of daily Internet users said Yes.
43% of weekly and monthly Internet users said Yes.
5% of seldom Internet users said Yes.

When asked to mark which of the following groups (businesses, libraries, non-profit organizations, students, faculty, government agencies, schools and people in foreign countries) publish on the Internet, only 58% chose all of the above. The groups most often not marked as publishing on the Web (listed in descending order) were people in foriegn countries, government agencies, libraries and non-profit organizations.

Additionally, we asked students to list two Internet-related issues which most interested them. Although some students were not sure what we were asking or admitted that they did not know any, we collected a fairly lengthy list of "hot topics" which were integrated into the six categories of Internet issues within TILT.