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Article
Publication date: 11 January 2013

Hans van der Meij, Jan van der Meij and David K. Farkas

QuikScan is an innovative text format that employs three prominent signaling devices – summaries, headings, and access cues – to make the reading of medium‐to‐long texts more…

Abstract

Purpose

QuikScan is an innovative text format that employs three prominent signaling devices – summaries, headings, and access cues – to make the reading of medium‐to‐long texts more productive. The experiments reported in this paper aim to examine the claim that QuikScan contributes to text recall.

Design/methodology/approach

In two consecutive experiments a QuikScanned text (experimental condition) was compared to a non‐QuickScanned text (control condition). In Experiment one, 41 university students read the text and then answered ten open recall questions. In Experiment two, 58 university students read the text and then wrote a summary and answered four recall questions.

Findings

In Experiment one, a statistically significant overall effect on text recall favoring QuikScan was found. Detailed analyses revealed that QuikScan mainly affected the readers' responses to higher‐order questions (d = 1.24). Experiment two showed that QuikScan led to significantly higher recall scores for the summaries. Just as in the first experiment, a strong effect on the higher‐order questions was found (d = 1.27).

Research limitations/implications

Further studies of QuikScan should include studies in naturalistic settings and should address selective reading and information navigation as well as text recall. SARA, a recent comprehensive theory of signaling, makes it possible to identify the individual functions of QuikScan's signaling devices and conduct revealing studies of QuikScan.

Practical implications

QuikScan and other innovations that improve the reading experience can potentially increase the willingness of readers to read longer documents.

Originality/value

QuikScan provides a unique combination of signaling devices. It can facilitate access and enhance text comprehension.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 69 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 November 2015

Huub Ploegmakers and Friso de Vor

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the specification of hedonic pricing models can be improved by using insights generated from qualitative research. In doing so, it…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the specification of hedonic pricing models can be improved by using insights generated from qualitative research. In doing so, it seeks to address one of the main problems in the specification of hedonic models, namely that theory yields little guidance in the selection of the characteristics that should be included on the right-hand side.

Design/methodology/approach

Building on the behavioural tradition in real estate research, this paper introduces a research approach that integrates insights from qualitative analysis in an econometric model of land values. The empirical segment explores the way in which asking prices of building plots for industrial purposes are determined in The Netherlands. It draws from interviews with municipal land developers, who dominate supply in this market. The information secured during these interviews relates to the characteristics considered important and the kind of information used in the valuation process. Based on these qualitative data, an econometric model is developed and estimated.

Findings

The estimation results confirm qualitative evidence that the typical developer considers only a limited number of features of the land in the valuation process and that the primary source of information in setting asking prices relates to the prices charged in neighbouring municipalities.

Originality/value

This paper represents a novel attempt to examine the determination of land and property values by merging qualitative and quantitative, econometric analyses.

Details

Journal of European Real Estate Research, vol. 8 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1753-9269

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 September 2019

Liangzhi Yu, Zhenjia Fan and Anyi Li

The purpose of this paper is to lay a theoretical foundation for identifying operational information units for library and information professional activities in the context of…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to lay a theoretical foundation for identifying operational information units for library and information professional activities in the context of scholarly communication.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopts a deduction-verification approach to formulate a typology of units for scholarly information. It first deduces possible units from an existing conceptualization of information, which defines information as the combined product of data and meaning, and then tests the usefulness of these units via two empirical investigations, one with a group of scholarly papers and the other with a sample of scholarly information users.

Findings

The results show that, on defining an information unit as a piece of information that is complete in both data and meaning, to such an extent that it remains meaningful to its target audience when retrieved and displayed independently in a database, it is then possible to formulate a hierarchical typology of units for scholarly information. The typology proposed in this study consists of three levels, which in turn, consists of 1, 5 and 44 units, respectively.

Research limitations/implications

The result of this study has theoretical implications on both the philosophical and conceptual levels: on the philosophical level, it hinges on, and reinforces the objective view of information; on the conceptual level, it challenges the conceptualization of work by IFLA’s Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records and Library Reference Model but endorses that by Library of Congress’s BIBFRAME 2.0 model.

Practical implications

It calls for reconsideration of existing operational units in a variety of library and information activities.

Originality/value

The study strengthens the conceptual foundation of operational information units and brings to light the primacy of “one work” as an information unit and the possibility for it to be supplemented by smaller units.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 76 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

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