How today’s college students use Wikipedia for course–related research

Figure 4: Which resources do students turn to for obtaining background about a topic? Note: Listed in descending order from most to least frequently used resources.
Resources used for obtaining background about a topic	Frequency (% and N)
1. Course readings	97% 1,903
2. Google (i.e., for finding sites other than Wikipedia)	95% 1,891
3. Scholarly research databases (EBSCO, ProQuest, JSTOR, etc.)	93% 1,823
4. Online Public Access Catalog (Library catalog)	90% 1,791
5. Instructors	87% 1,662
6. Wikipedia	85% 1,675
7. Government Web sites	74% 1,381
8. Classmates	71% 1,362
9. Personal collection	69% 1,288
10. Library shelves	69% 1,312
11. Encyclopedias (print or online, e.g., Britannica)	61% 1,188
12. Friends	57% 1,088
13. Other search engines (e.g., Ask, Yahoo!)	52% 1,022
14. Librarians	45% 865
15. Blogs	25% 474

Librarians get pretty worked up whenever "Wikipedia" is mentioned. Here is one the few studies done on Wikipedia usage and college students from the US. Jennie

How today’s college students use Wikipedia for course–related research
by Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg.
First Monday, Volume 15, Number 3 - 1 March 2010
http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2830/2476

ABSTRACT
Findings are reported from student focus groups and a large–scale survey about how and why students (enrolled at six different U.S. colleges) use Wikipedia during the course–related research process. A majority of respondents frequently used Wikipedia for background information, but less often than they used other common resources, such as course readings and Google. Architecture, engineering, and science majors were more likely to use Wikipedia for course–related research than respondents in other majors. The findings suggest Wikipedia is used in combination with other information resources. Wikipedia meets the needs of college students because it offers a mixture of coverage, currency, convenience, and comprehensibility in a world where credibility is less of a given or an expectation from today’s students.