Abstract
This study focused on the factors affecting the use of Google search engine across different emerging
technological devices and its implications for the design of search solutions. The design of the study
was survey research design. Three research questions and three null hypotheses were formulated to
guide the study.The population for this study was3712 respondents which comprised of 3010 students
and 702 Lecturers from University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The lecturers and students were chosen
because they make use of Google search engine for research purposes. To constitute the sample,
140 lecturers and 301 students were selected using simple random sampling technique. A structured
questionnaire of 21 items was developed for the purpose of data collection. Three experts validated
the instrument and Cronbach alpha method was used to determine the reliability co-efficient which
yielded 0.81. Data collected were analyzed using mean and standard to answer research questions
and independent sample t-test statistic to test the null hypothesis. From the analysis of the research
questions, it was found that different factors affect the use of Google search engine across different
emerging technological devices such as quality of the system/interface, quality of the information
stored in the system and level of satisfaction derived by the user in the daily use of the system. The
findings of the study also revealed that there was no significant difference (p>0.05) among the
respondents on the factors affecting the use of Google search engine across different emerging
technology devices. Based on these findings, it was recommended among others that search engine
companies are to censure the inclusion of relevant keyword for easy search, uploading contents that
solve user‟s problems, making search engine responsive across different devices and gaining backlinks
to the search engine, so as to improve the convenience and efficiency of using search engines
across different emerging technological devices.
Publication Date: 2018-12-06