Open AccessChanges in users' knowledge structures before and after Web search on a topic: Analysis using the concept map
Author(s) -
Saito Hitomi,
Egusa Yuka,
Terai Hitoshi,
Kando Noriko,
Nakashima Ryo,
Takaku Masao,
Miwa Makiko
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
proceedings of the american society for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1550-8390
pISSN - 0044-7870
DOI - 10.1002/meet.2011.14504801097
Subject(s) - computer science , feature (linguistics) , world wide web , information retrieval , exploratory search , data science , philosophy , linguistics
In this study, we investigate the changes in users' mental representations of a topic during their exploratory search on the Web. We use concept maps to compare the users' knowledge before and after a search. Participants are required to gather information on the Web as preparation for a regular feature of a magazine on environment and trip topics. They are divided into two scenario groups: divergent and convergent. The divergent scenario requires the gathering of Web pages for an entire series of articles in a regular feature while the convergent scenario requires the gathering of Web pages for a single article of a regular feature. A comparative analysis between the pre‐ and post‐ search concept maps indicate that the participants in the divergent scenario change their knowledge widely while the participants in the convergent scenario change their knowledge deeply. The results also show that there were more nodes, links, and link labels in the trip topic than in the environmental topic.