Ever wonder why students don’t read your carefully-chosen course materials and instead look for other sources of information on the web?

I peronally have always found this habit annoying. A recent (albeit informal) study published in the Chronicle of Higher Education suggests students have good reasons for treating the web as their textbook. Most notably, students surfing the web may be looking for the same information in their textbooks, but in a format that is more understandable to them.

This strikes me as an area ripe for further inquiry. I mean, who hasn’t looked for another source of information when a given source doesn’t make sense?

Comments?