Dissertation Information for Elizabeth Brindle NAME: - Elizabeth Brindle
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science
SCHOOL:
- Syracuse University (USA) (1981)
ADVISORS: - Wayne Crouch
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - None
MPACT Status: Incomplete - Inspected
Title: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHARACTERISTICS OF SEARCHERS AND THEIR BEHAVIORS WHILE USING AN ONLINE INTERACTIVE RETRIEVAL SYSTEM
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to find out if there are relationships between the characteristics of searchers and the way they interact with online interactive retrieval systems. The characteristics of searchers that were investigated were cognitive style (a preferred way of coming to know something), experience with the system and knowledge of the subject area of the query.
The measure of cognitive style used in this study has two dimensions in information gathering and information evaluating. The information gathering dimension is defined as a person's method of selecting and rejecting incoming data and of classifying the relevant data. The extreme ends of the dimension are labeled "receptive" and "perceptive." The information evaluating dimension is defined as the way in which people go about analyzing the information once they have it and the sequence in which this is done. The extreme ends of the dimension are labeled "systematic" and "intuitive."
The participants were trained intermediaries who used DIALOG. A sample of 37 volunteer searchers were recruited for this study; thirty-one completed all parts of the study. The participants were given the tests for measuring cognitive style and a questionnaire to measure their familiarity with the subject area of the queries that they later did searches and for the amount of experience they had with the retrieval system used for the searches. They were then given two queries for which they did searches. The hard copy output of the searches was used for analysis of the interaction.
The commands from the hard copy were converted into states that reflect the interaction of the system and the user. The sequence of state selection provided the patterns of user behavior. These patterns were used for analysis in several ways. One way was to compare the frequencies of occurrence of each state for different types of searchers as defined by the characteristics being studied. Another way of analyzing user behavior and its relationship to searcher characteristics was to construct matrices of the probabilities of transition from each state to the others. The matrices of the different types of searchers were compared.
It was found that all the participants had the same cognitive style (intuitive-preceptive) when compared with another population. In the exploratory analysis, there were a number of significant results for first-order transitions due to several of the characteristics used. These characteristics were the two dimensions of cognitive style and system experience.
This study demonstrates that some of the characteristics of the user of interactive bibliographic retrieval systems influence some of the patterns of interaction. However, other characteristics need to be explored.
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MPACT Scores for Elizabeth Brindle A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-01-31 06:11:42
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