What Credo Data Tells Us about Student Research Trends

Director of Product Jeff Soloway dives into the shifting research interests of today’s student population, drawing on millions of searches from Credo Reference’s vast database. From rising concerns about the economy to the growing popularity of sports betting, Jeff explores what the data reveals — and how Credo is using these insights to keep students engaged with high-quality content.

It’s no surprise that student research interests are constantly changing. The student population itself is always turning over, as some students graduate and others are admitted every year. Beyond that, young people’s interests in general are naturally dynamic, now more than ever in the age of social media and dizzying technological advancement. And as undergraduates are increasingly advised to choose personally meaningful research topics, their personal interests are often reflected in their research work.

But how much and how exactly are those research interests changing? The question is crucial to librarians, instructors, and anyone else interested in engaging students.

We at Credo have the answer.

Credo’s Research Data

Credo Reference is a reference database serving thousands of institutions across the country. We call it the place to start research. Students come to Credo to gather contextual information on a general subject, often in order to refine and develop a vague idea into a specific research topic. Every year, Credo users launch millions of searches.

Credo’s usage data—vast, widespread, and representative of the larger universe of students—is uniquely suited for answering the key question what are students interested in?

Our team has been examining not only the Credo search data itself, but also how that data has been changing over time. To start, we generated a list of the 200 most popular search terms in 2024 and compared it to a list of the top 200 terms in 2025.

As it turns out, student research interests are evolving even more rapidly than we expected. The rankings of the top 200 have shifted significantly, in some places dramatically, in just a year. In fact, over 25% of the most popular terms in 2024 shifted more than 50 places in our ranking in 2025.

What’s New in Credo Research Trends

In examining newly popular search terms, we noticed a number of striking trends. The following are on the rise:

• Terms related to business and the economy. The terms project management and finance shot up more than 60 places. Minimum wage, always a popular search term, also managed to climb significantly. And there were many more. Most of us have heard young people express concern about the state of the economy and their future job prospects. Here is concrete evidence of their anxiety.
• Terms reflecting current events. It’s no surprise that tariffs became a newly popular term in 2025. (Searches on coronavirus, on the other hand, dropped notably, demonstrating that some research interests can dip after previous peaks.)
• Terms related to ascendant social and cultural trends. The term gambling is much more popular this year—likely reflecting the increasing (and frankly worrying) availability of sports betting apps on students’ phones.

At the same time, many of the most popular search subjects near rose nor fell but maintained their popularity across the period. These include social media, AI, and other terms related to technologies that may be relatively new to some of us but are well-established to students.

Our data has uncovered many additional facts and trends. We’ve never had a richer understanding of what interests students right now.

How Credo Uses This Data in its Publishing Plan

We at Credo track this data generally, but of course not for individual students or classes. All of it is anonymized and aggregated.

The result is an incredibly useful data resource. Now that we know which search subjects are consistently popular over the last few years, and which are increasingly popular right now, we can act more quickly to acquire and publish new content on subjects that most interest students. We plan to examine the data regularly, checking for new trends and changing needs.

We’re not altering our publishing strategy completely. We’ll continue to cover all the basics a student might need to research, even for subjects far off the top 200 list. Nevertheless, with this new approach to data, we can sharpen our focus on content students might not be getting from other sources.

We know that if student researchers sit down at a library resource and can’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll get bored or annoyed and run off to the wilds of the internet. We want to keep them engaged with rich, high-quality content. By using the data, that’s just what we plan to do.

Explore Credo Reference for Your Institution

Credo is designed to the place where students build fundamental context to search efficiently and think critically. Interested in exploring what Credo Reference can do for your institution? Schedule a conversation with a member of our team.