Dissertation Information for Ingrid Hsieh-YeeNAME:
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SCHOOL: ADVISORS: COMMITTEE MEMBERS: MPACT Status: Fully Complete Title: The search tactics of novice and experienced searchers: A comparative study Abstract: The study compared how experienced and novice searchers conduct online searches by focusing on their search tactics. Specifically the effects of subject knowledge and search experience on the use of the search tactics were examined. In an experimental setting, thirty-two experienced searchers and thirty novice searchers searched a practice question and two test questions in the ERIC database on the DIALOG system. To address the issue of order effects, half of each subject group received a question in their subject area first, while the other half received a question outside their subject area first. Nine tactics were identified from the literature and ten pretests, and operationalized for the study. Data were collected by protocols, transaction logs, and observation forms. Compared to novice searchers, experienced searchers included more similar concepts, tried out more logical combinations of search terms and used more system devices to expand or reduce retrieval results. When searching an unfamiliar topic, besides using more of the above tactics, they also relied more on the thesaurus for term selection and looked for more terms offline than novice searchers. When searching a familiar topic, experienced searchers relied more on their own terminology than when searching an unfamiliar topic. But in searching an unfamiliar topic, they included more similar concepts, monitored their search more, manipulated their terms more, checked the thesaurus more, and found more search terms before going online than in searching a familiar topic. When searching a familiar topic, novice searchers monitored their search more than experienced searchers. When searching an unfamiliar topic, they were found to rely more on their own terminology than experienced searchers; knowledge had no effect on novice searchers' use of search tactics. |
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