[Air-L] testing internet user

[Caroline Haythornthwaite]

You asked about testing a user's internet expertise level. I just came across a test that John Horrigan used for an FCC study on Internet use. The report gives results for how many people said they understood 'very well' the following terms

refresh or reload - 61%
operating system - 44%
Internet browser cookie - 42%
JPEG file - 41%
spyware or malware - 40%
widget - 16%

This seems like a nice simple way to find out about internet knowledge and there are his numbers to compare it to.   /Caroline


Broadband Adoption and Use in America, OBI Working Paper Series no. 1, By John B. Horrigan, Federal Communications Commission, 2010. 
[It's online from various locations.]

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Hello everyone!

I am preparing my research experiment on web site usability and I have 
to do a pre-test to select people for it: I need to define if they are 
beginners, intermediate or advanced internet users (in general). You 
know, something similar to English-level tests: if a person can do A, 
he/she is a beginner, if A and B - intermediate, and if A, B and C - 
then we have an advanced level of English.

I was wondering if there exists the same test to find out what kind of 
Internet user you are? Because if not, there should be one, I think!

Will appreciate your messages about this issue,

Thanks a lot!

Anna Ivanova
ivanova.re at gmail.com

PS. do not hesitate to contact me a bit later if you are also interested 
in this question, so that I can tell you what answers I got from this 
list.
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Caroline Haythornthwaite

Leverhulme Visiting Professor, Institute of Education, University of London (2009-10)

Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820 (haythorn at illinois.edu)