Dr. Heather O’Brien has been awarded a four-year SSHRC Insight Grant, “Antecedents and Learning Outcomes of Exploratory Search Engagement.” This project leverages her long-term work in the area of user engagement with exploratory search. Research in the area of exploratory search recognizes that users “search to learn”: they embark on an iterative process of understanding their topic and the information resources they encounter. Searchers continuously clarify their goals; interpret, evaluate and analyze information; and incorporate new insights into their existing knowledge base. This type of searching is hard work (much like all learning). The ability to engage searchers and to maintain their interest and attention throughout the search process may enable learning to occur by preventing premature disengagement out of frustration, lack of interest, or cognitive overload.
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This proposed SSHRC-funded research will investigate the predictive role of specific user characteristics (e.g., cognitive load, interest, expertise) and information tasks on user engagement, and seek to establish an empirical link between user engagement and learning in the exploratory search context. It will develop an exploratory search engagement model that can be applied to the design of exploratory search systems, and will construct, use and evaluate various measures of user engagement and learning to contribute a suite of robust tools for measuring exploratory search engagement. More broadly, however, this research frames exploratory search as an educational and societal investment. While the idea of ‘search’ may conjure the image of the minimalistic search engine homepage with every answer a query or click away, this is not the reality. Information needs cannot always be reduced to a simple query and multiple sources may be needed to piece together evidence, solve a problem, or make a decision. Given the abundance and richness of digital information we must ensure that people are benefitting from search experiences by motivating them to do the hard work of learning.
