Search results

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of verbal-imagery cognitive styles of information searching behavior of users in using the Web.

In all, 44 participants were recruited for this study. The participants’ cognitive styles were measured by using Riding's Cognitive Style Analysis test. Three search tasks were designed based on Kim's search task definitions. Moreover, an individual lab session was arranged and then participants’ memos were analyzed using content analysis.

In all, 48 strategies in four categories of behaviors in searching the Web were identified. There were associations between users’ cognitive styles and their information searching behavior. The participants’ selection of the search initiation behaviors varied, so that imagers suffered from more varied initial behavior than verbalizers. The verbalizers tended to search in a narrow area, then broadening the area and following structured navigation and reading behavior to process information, while imagers tended to search in a general area, then narrowing down the search and adopting mixed navigational styles and mixed behaviors to process information. This study revealed that there was a difference in search performance of verbalizers and imagers descriptively, as verbalizers spent more time compared to imagers and imagers visited more nodes than verbalizers for the tasks completion. In addition, the task was an important variable influencing the search performance. Based on the key findings (search initiation behaviors, formulating search queries, navigational behaviors, information processing behaviors), a conceptual pattern of Web searching and cognitive styles is presented.

The study provides a new understanding of Web users’ information search behavior based on cognitive styles which contributes to the theoretical basis of Web search research. It also raises various questions within the context of user studies

The paper adopted a mixed approach in the area of information searching on the Web. A valuable contribution lies in the methods developed.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the role of spatial intelligence in predicting the web information searching behavior and performance of high school students.

The population of this study consisted of all female students who were studying in the eighth and ninth grades of Shiraz University School. The students searched an educational website by using keywords to find some answers to two tasks (one simple task and one complex task).

The findings of this study revealed that among the five components of spatial intelligence, the three components of spatial orientation, perceptual speed and flexibility of closure could better predict the web searching behavior and performance of the students. To elaborate, spatial orientation could predict the query length and the search time; perceptual speed was helpful in predicting the reformulation of the question, the number of results pages observed, the number of links viewed, and success; flexibility of closure also predicted the success in the search.

The results of this study can help researchers and others understand the searching behavior and performance of children and the cognitive factors which affect them. The results can also help teachers and school librarians to teach students the necessary skills and design interactive systems that take into account adolescents’ different cognitive approaches. While other studies have focused on adults’ and university students’ behavior, this study examined the adolescents’ behavior. Furthermore, although the previous studies have attempted to investigate just one dimension of the searching process, i.e., either behavior or performance, this study simultaneously focused on both dimensions and examined both searching behavior and performance through keyword searching strategy.

Semantic technologies are a potential approach to enhancing the use of the web of knowledge. An experiment was conducted to investigate the roles of two semantic techniques, namely concept recommendation and mind maps, for females and males This paper aims to document this research.

The study compared the searching behaviours and perceptions of searching strategies in the search environment with techniques to reveal the gender difference in the use of semantic technologies. The study further investigated how the techniques influenced female and male students' searching experiences by comparing their searching behaviours and strategies in two different environments, one developed with the semantic technologies and one without.

Although the techniques were helpful for both female and male students in improving their perceptions of searching strategies, there were gender differences in sense of disorientation, problem solving and searching patterns. In particular, the techniques facilitated females to search for information beyond similarity holes, but did not demonstrate such an effect on males. However, they supported males to organize information for better use.

The study is only a small‐scale investigation. Further studies need to be conducted with a larger sample to obtain robust evidence.

In this paper, the effects of semantic technologies are evaluated from the perspectives of education and the human factor, rather than only in terms of technical performance.

This paper aims to report findings from an exploratory study investigating the web interactions and technoliteracy of children in the early childhood years. Previous research has studied aspects of older children's technoliteracy and web searching; however, few studies have analyzed web search data from children younger than six years of age.

The study explored the Google web searching and technoliteracy of young children who are enrolled in a “preparatory classroom” or kindergarten (the year before young children begin compulsory schooling in Queensland, Australia). Young children were video‐ and audio‐taped while conducting Google web searches in the classroom. The data were qualitatively analysed to understand the young children's web search behaviour.

The findings show that young children engage in complex web searches, including keyword searching and browsing, query formulation and reformulation, relevance judgments, successive searches, information multitasking and collaborative behaviours. The study results provide significant initial insights into young children's web searching and technoliteracy.

The use of web search engines by young children is an important research area with implications for educators and web technologies developers.

This is the first study of young children's interaction with a web search engine.

Web search services are now a major source of information for a growing number of people. We need to know more about how users search Web search engines to improve the effectiveness of their information retrieval. This paper reports results from a major study exploring users’ information searching behavior on the EXCITE Web search engine. The study is the first to investigate Web users’ successive searching behavior as they conduct related searches

The purpose of this paper is to explore the web search behavior of adolescents from a Chinese secondary school and the factors affecting this behavior.

A controlled experiment was conducted to collect data on adolescents’ background and their web search behavior. A total of 48 students were asked to perform three different search tasks on the internet within a limited time, and were then interviewed by researchers.

The results revealed three characteristics of Chinese adolescents’ main behavior during the search process: mental set during the search process, poor information search skills, and poor ability to process the search results. In addition, this research found that cognitive style had only minor influence on students’ use of embedded links. However, grade and task type had a significant impact on their search performance and behavior. In general, high school students performed better than middle school students, and adolescents acted differently when completing different tasks.

This research sheds light on Chinese middle and high school students’ search behavior on the web. It also investigates how cognitive style, grade, and task type influence students’ online search behavior.

The purpose of this article is to alert researchers to software for web tracking of information seeking behaviour, and to offer a list of criteria that will make it easier to select software. A selection of research projects based on web tracking as well as the benefits and disadvantages of web tracking are also explored.

An overview of the literature, including clarification of key concepts, a brief overview of studies of web information seeking behaviour based on web tracking, identification of software used, as well as the strengths and short‐comings noted for web tracking is used as a background to the identification of criteria for the selection of web tracking software.

Web tracking can offer very valuable information for the development of websites, portals, digital libraries, etc. It, however, needs to be supplemented by qualitative studies, and researchers need to ensure that the tracking software will collect the data required.

The criteria is not applied to any software in particular.

The criteria can be used by researchers working on web usage and web information seeking behaviour to select suitable tracking software.

Although there are many reports on the use of web tracking (also reported in this article), nothing could be traced on criteria for the evaluation of web tracking software.

This paper aims to examine our current knowledge of how searchers perceive and react to the possibility of missing potentially important information whilst searching the web is limited. The study reported here seeks to investigate such perceptions and reactions, and to explore the extent to which Simon's “bounded rationality” theory is useful in illuminating these issues.

Totally 37 academic staff, research staff and research students in three university departments were interviewed about their web searching. The open‐ended, semi‐structured interviews were inductively analysed. Emergence of the concept of “good enough” searching prompted a further analysis to explore the extent to which the data could be interpreted in terms of Simon's concepts of “bounded rationality” and “satisficing”.

The results indicate that the risk of missing potentially important information was a matter of concern to the interviewees. Their estimations of the likely extent and importance of missed information affected decisions by individuals as to when to stop searching – decisions based on very different criteria, which map well onto Simon's concepts. On the basis of the interview data, the authors propose tentative categorizations of perceptions of the risk of missing information including “inconsequential” “tolerable” “damaging” and “disastrous” and search strategies including “perfunctory” “minimalist” “nervous” and “extensive”. It is concluded that there is at least a prima facie case for bounded rationality and satisficing being considered as potentially useful concepts in our quest better to understand aspects of human information behaviour.

Although the findings are based on a relatively small sample and an exploratory qualitative analysis, it is argued that the study raises a number of interesting questions, and has implications for both the development of theory and practice in the areas of web searching and information literacy.

The paper focuses on an aspect of web searching which has not to date been well explored. Whilst research has done much to illuminate searchers' perceptions of what they find on the web, we know relatively little of their perceptions of, and reactions to information that they fail to find. The study reported here provides some tentative models, based on empirical evidence, of these phenomena.

This chapter explores new and emerging dimensions in our understanding of how information behaviour develops in early childhood. Spink (2010) proposed that information behaviour — when we engage in behaviours to make sense of, seek, avoid, forage, use and organise information — is (1) shaped by both instinctive and environmental dimensions that are as essential to the lives of our prehistoric ancestors as they are for people today and (2) emerges in early childhood. This chapter explores what we currently know about the development of cognitive, language, social and information behaviour abilities in early childhood. Drawing on research from cognitive and developmental psychology, and findings from two studies of different aspects of young children's information behaviours, including Web searching (Spink, et al., 2010) and library information categorisation (Cooper, 2004), the chapter discusses information behaviour development in early childhood. The connection between general cognitive development and information behaviour are discussed, and further research suggested.

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the picture of strategies for information searching and seeking by reviewing the conceptualizations on this topic in the field of library and information science (LIS).

The study draws on Henry Mintzberg’s idea of strategy as plan and strategy as pattern in a stream of actions. Conceptual analysis of 57 LIS investigations was conducted to find out how researchers have approached the above aspects in the characterizations of information search and seeking strategies.

In the conceptualizations of information search and information seeking strategies, the aspect of strategy as plan is explicated most clearly in text-book approaches describing the steps of rational web searching. Most conceptualizations focus on the aspect of strategy as pattern in a stream of actions. This approach places the main emphasis on realized strategies, either deliberate or emergent. Deliberate strategies indicate how information search or information seeking processes were oriented by intentions that existed previously. Emergent strategies indicate how patterns in information seeking and seeking developed in the absence of intentions, or despite them.

The conceptualizations of the shifts in information seeking and searching strategies were excluded from the study. Similarly, conceptualizations of information search or information retrieval tactics were not examined.

The study pioneers by providing an in-depth analysis of the ways in which the key aspects of strategy are conceptualized in the classifications and typologies of information seeking and searching strategies. The findings contribute to the elaboration of the conceptual space of information behaviour research.