Affective and cognitive searching behavior of novice end‐users of a full‐text database

Diane Nahl and Carol Tenopir

Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 1996, vol. 47, issue 4, 276-286

Abstract: Novice end users were given 2 hours of training in searching a full‐text magazine database (Magazine ASAP™) on DIALOG. Subjects searched during three to four sessions in the presence of a trained monitor who prompted them to think aloud throughout the sessions. Qualitative analysis of the transcripts and transaction logs yielded empirical information on user variables (purpose, motivation, satisfaction), uses of the database, move types, and every question users asked during the searches. The spontaneous, naturalistic questions were categorized according to affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor speech acts. Results show that most of the searches were performed for the self and were work‐related. The most common use of the database was to retrieve full‐text articles online and to download and print them out rather than read them on screen. The majority of searches were judged satisfactory. Innovative uses included browsing for background information and obtaining contextualized sentences for language teaching. Searchers made twice as many moves to limit sets as moves to expand sets. Affective questions outnumbered cognitive and sensorimotor questions by two to one. This preponderance of affective micro‐information needs during searching might be addressed by new system functions. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Date: 1996
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(199604)47:43.0.CO;2-U

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jamest:v:47:y:1996:i:4:p:276-286

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1097-4571

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of the American Society for Information Science from Association for Information Science & Technology
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().