Cognitive styles and online behavior of novice searchers

摘要

Studies of online searching have acknowledged the existence of a wide variety in online search process and outcome variables among individual searchers. Identifying variables associated with these differences could influence the hiring and training of online searchers and impact the design of heuristics for expert systems for information retrieval. Novice searchers at Florida State University were studied to determine relationships between cognitive styles and five measures of online behavior. Results indicate a consistent relationship between placement in quadrants of the Learning Style Inventory and high and low mean group scores. Compared with online studies by Saracevic and Woelfl, however, the results from the FSU study are only partially confirmed.