More than 2,000 students from six colleges and universities in the United States, including both public and private universities and four- and two-year colleges, were surveyed for the study. Students at Princeton did not participate in the study.
The study found that 82 percent of respondents reported using Wikipedia to obtain background information on a topic. While 52 percent reported that they were frequent users, only 22 percent said that they rarely, if ever, used the website. Students in four-year colleges were also more likely than those in two-year colleges to use Wikipedia for research.
Princeton students, librarians and faculty alike agreed that Wikipedia serves as a good starting point for research but should not be used as a cited source.
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Nancy Pressman-Levy, head of Stokes Library, said that non-students also make frequent use of Wikipedia. “Even faculty use it to get started on a topic when you don’t know anything about it and you need a quick source to consult,” she explained.
“You just have to be very careful about the information, as you need to with all websites,” she added, because “there’s no authority behind it.”
History professor Philip Nord expressed a similar sentiment. “I look at Wikipedia all the time, but I wouldn’t ever rely on it, nor would I advise students to do it,” he said
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The study’s findings that more science than humanities majors and more students at four-year colleges than two-year colleges use Wikipedia, along with the existance of an inverse correlation between Wikipedia usage and library usage, surprised some members of the University community.
Pressman-Levy noted that she did not expect “to see a stronger emphasis on science majors” using Wikipedia, adding that “students use Wikipedia on campus across the board. I work with social science students and faculty, and all seem to be heavy users of Wikipedia.”
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