Search (7 results, page 1 of 1)

  • × author_ss:"Large, A."
  1. Cole, C.; Behesthi, J.; Large, A.; Lamoureux, I.; Abuhimed, D.; AlGhamdi, M.: Seeking information for a middle school history project : the concept of implicit knowledge in the students' transition from Kuhlthau's Stage 3 to Stage 4 (2013) 0.02
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    Abstract
    The article reports the findings of a content analysis study of 16 student-group proposals for a grade eight history project. The students listed their topic and thesis in the proposal, and information in support of their thesis. The study's focus is this topic-to-thesis transition. The study's conceptual framework is Kuhlthau's six stage ISP Model's transition from exploring information in Stage 3 to formulating a focus or personal perspective on the assignment topic in Stage 4. Our study coding scheme identifies elements of the students' implicit knowledge in the 16 proposals. To validate implicit knowledge as a predictor of successful student performance, implicit knowledge was coded, scored, and then the correlation coefficient was established between the score and the students' instructors' marks. In Part 2 of the study we found strong and significant association between the McGill coding scores and the instructors' marks for the 16 proposals. This study is a first step in identifying, operationalizing, and testing user-centered implicit knowledge elements for future implementation in interactive information systems designed for middle school students researching a thesis-objective history assignment.
    Date
    22. 3.2013 19:41:17
  2. Yi, K.; Beheshti, J.; Cole, C.; Leide, J.E.; Large, A.: User search behavior of domain-specific information retrieval systems : an analysis of the query logs from PsycINFO and ABC-Clio's Historical Abstracts/America: History and Life (2006) 0.01
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    Abstract
    The authors report the findings of a study that analyzes and compares the query logs of PsycINFO for psychology and the two history databases of ABC-Clio: Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life to establish the sociological nature of information need, searching, and seeking in history versus psychology. Two problems are addressed: (a) What level of query log analysis - by individual query terms, by co-occurrence of word pairs, or by multiword terms (MWTs) - best serves as data for categorizing the queries to these two subject-bound databases; and (b) how can the differences in the nature of the queries to history versus psychology databases aid in our understanding of user search behavior and the information needs of their respective users. The authors conclude that MWTs provide the most effective snapshot of user searching behavior for query categorization. The MWTs to ABC-Clio indicate specific instances of historical events, people, and regions, whereas the MWTs to PsycINFO indicate concepts roughly equivalent to descriptors used by PsycINFO's own classification scheme. The average length of queries is 3.16 terms for PsycINFO and 3.42 for ABC-Clio, which breaks from findings for other reference and scholarly search engine studies, bringing query length closer in line to findings for general Web search engines like Excite.
    Object
    America: History and Life
  3. Beheshti, J.; Bowler, L.; Large, A.; Nesset, V.: Towards an alternative information retrieval system for children (2005) 0.01
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    Abstract
    A recent survey of more than 1700 households indicates that the main reason many parents purchase computers and connect their children to the Internet at home is for education (Safe and Smart). In addition the survey shows that children also use the Internet for educational activities that go beyond required school work. In fact, the fastest growing group of Internet users are children between the ages of eight and twelve (Vise, 2003), who are increasingly using the Web to access educational as well as entertainment materials. Children, however, rely on conventional information retrieval (IR) systems and search engines intended for general adult use, such as MSN or Google, and to a much lesser extent, Web portals such as Yahooligans! and LycosZone specifically intended for young users (Large et al., 2004; Large, Beheshti, and Rahman, 2002a). But research has shown that children's information needs (Walter, 1994), research approaches (Kuhlthau, 1991), and cognitive abilities and higher order thinking skills (Neuman, 1995; Siegler, 1998; Vandergrift, 1989) differ from those of adults. The results of earlier studies on children's use of online catalogues designed for adults indicate that young users are often faced with difficulties locating specific information related to their information needs (Hirsh, 1997). A growing body of research points to the problems children typically encounter when seeking information on the Web. Kafai and Bates (1997) conducted one of the first studies with young children on their use of Web sites, and concluded that they were able to navigate through the links and scroll. Only the older children, however, could use search engines effectively. Hirsh (1999) investigated the searching behavior of ten fifth graders and concluded that they encountered difficulties in formulating effective search queries and did not use advanced features. Schacter, Chung, and Dorr (1998) conducted a study on Internet searching by fifth and sixth graders and concluded that they did not plan their searches, used ill-defined queries, and preferred browsing. Large, Beheshti, and Moukdad (1999), investigating the information seeking behavior of 53 sixth graders, similarly found that children preferred browsing to searching. Bowler, Large, and Rejskind (2001), focusing on a few case studies of grade six students concluded that search engines designed for adults are unsuitable for children. Wallace et al. (2000), studying sixth graders, discovered that experience in using search engines does not improve children's search strategies and in general information seeking is an unfamiliar activity for children.
  4. Leide, J.E.; Cole, C.; Beheshti, J.; Large, A.; Lin, Y.: Task-based information retrieval : structuring undergraduate history essays for better course evaluation using essay-type visualizations (2007) 0.01
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    Abstract
    When domain novices are in C.C. Kuhlthau's (1993) Stage 3, the exploration stage of researching an assignment, they often do not know their information need; this causes them to go back to Stage 2, the topic-selection stage, when they are selecting keywords to formulate their query to an Information Retrieval (IR) system. Our hypothesis is that instead of going backward, they should be going forward toward a goal state-the performance of the task for which they are seeking the information. If they can somehow construct their goal state into a query, this forward-looking query better operationalizes their information need than does a topic-based query. For domain novice undergraduates seeking information for a course essay, we define their task as selecting a high-impact essay structure which will put the students' learning on display for the course instructor who will evaluate the essay. We report a study of first-year history undergraduate students which tested the use and effectiveness of "essay type" as a task-focused query-formulation device. We randomly assigned 78 history undergraduates to an intervention group and a control group. The dependent variable was essay quality, based on (a) an evaluation of the student's essay by a research team member, and (b) the marks given to the student's essay by the course instructor. We found that conscious or formal consideration of essay type is inconclusive as a basis of a task-focused query-formulation device for IR.
  5. Cole, C.; Leide, J.; Beheshti, J.; Large, A.; Brooks, M.: Investigating the Anomalous States of Knowledge hypothesis in a real-life problem situation : a study of history and psychology undergraduates seeking information for a course essay (2005) 0.01
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    Abstract
    The authors present a study of the real-life information needs of 59 McGill University undergraduates researching essay topics for either a history or psychology course, interviewed just after they had selected their essay topic. The interview's purpose was to transform the undergraduate's query from general topic terms, based an vague conceptions of their essay topic, to an information need-based query. To chart the transformation, the authors investigate N. J. Belkin, R. N. Oddy, and H. M. Brooks' Anomalous States of Knowledge (ASK) hypothesis (1982a, 1982b), which links the user's ASK to a relevant document set via a common code based an structural facets. In the present study an interoperable structural code based an eight essay styles is created, then notions of structural facets compatible with a highimpact essay structure are presented. The important findings of the study are: (a) the undergraduates' topic statements and terms derived from it do not constitute an effective information need statement because for most of the subjects in the study the topic terms conformed to a low-impact essay style; (b) essay style is an effective interoperable structural code for charting the evolution of the undergraduate's knowledge state from ASK to partial resolution of the ASK in an information need statement.
  6. Cole, C.; Lin, Y.; Leide, J.; Large, A.; Beheshti, J.: ¬A classification of mental models of undergraduates seeking information for a course essay in history and psychology : preliminary investigations into aligning their mental models with online thesauri (2007) 0.01
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    Abstract
    The article reports a field study which examined the mental models of 80 undergraduates seeking information for either a history or psychology course essay when they were in an early, exploration stage of researching their essay. This group is presently at a disadvantage when using thesaurus-type schemes in indexes and online search engines because there is a disconnect between how domain novice users of IR systems represent a topic space and how this space is represented in the standard IR system thesaurus. The study attempted to (a) ascertain the coding language used by the 80 undergraduates in the study to mentally represent their topic and then (b) align the mental models with the hierarchical structure found in many thesauri. The intervention focused the undergraduates' thinking about their topic from a topic statement to a thesis statement. The undergraduates were asked to produce three mental model diagrams for their real-life course essay at the beginning, middle, and end of the interview, for a total of 240 mental model diagrams, from which we created a 12-category mental model classification scheme. Findings indicate that at the end of the intervention, (a) the percentage of vertical mental models increased from 24 to 35% of all mental models; but that (b) 3rd-year students had fewer vertical mental models than did 1st-year undergraduates in the study, which is counterintuitive. The results indicate that there is justification for pursuing our research based on the hypothesis that rotating a domain novice's mental model into a vertical position would make it easier for him or her to cognitively connect with the thesaurus's hierarchical representation of the topic area.
  7. Large, A.; Beheshti, J.; Rahman, T.: Design criteria for children's Web portals : the users speak out (2002) 0.00
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    Date
    2. 6.2005 10:34:22