Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Effect Of Domain Knowledge On Elementary School Children's Search Behavior On An Information Retrieval System: The Science Library Catalog, Sandra Hirsh

Faculty Publications

Few information retrieval systems are designed with children’s special needs and capabilities in mind. We need to learn more about children’s information-seeking behavior in order to provide them with information-based tools which support exploratory learning. This dissertation examines children’s search behavior on a hypertext-based automated library catalog designed for elementary school children. The focus of this research is on the effect of domain knowledge on children’s search performance, search behavior, and learning as they look for science books on this system. Reseaxch has shown that level of domain knowledge in~luences the way people search for information. Data was collected through …