Search as learning:a psychological perspective

In my talk I gave an overview on the topic “search as learning” from a psychological perspective (specifically an educational and applied cognitive psychology perspective). The focus of psychological research in this field is on using the Internet to learn about complex, conflicting scientific or health-related issues rather than to learn simple facts. Such so-called ill-structured problems do not have a single, definitive solution, but are characterized by conflicting and fragile evidence. Two central processing steps that are typically addressed in this mostly experimental research are (1) the evaluation and selection of search results presented by a search engine, and (2) the comparison and integration of information from multiple websites. Moreover, during both steps source evaluation processes are investigated; i.e., whether, how, and when learners attend to, evaluate, and use information about the sources of documents (cf. credibility assessment). As outlined in my talk, a central goal of psychological research in this field is also to identify and examine factors that might influence the information seeking processes and learning outcomes. Such influencing factors are, for instance, prior topic knowledge or attitudes (i.e., individual variables), task instructions or trainings (i.e., contextual variables), or search tools or interfaces (i.e., resource variables)

The relationship of (perceived) epistemic cognition to interaction with resources on the internet

Information seeking and processing are key literacy practices. However, they are activities that students, across a range of ages, struggle with. These information seeking processes can be viewed through the lens of epistemic cognition: beliefs regarding the source, justification, complexity, and certainty of knowledge. In the research reported in this article we build on established research in this area, which has typically used self-report psychometric and behavior data, and information seeking tasks involving closed-document sets. We take a novel approach in applying established self-report measures to a large-scale, naturalistic, study environment, pointing to the potential of analysis of dialogue, web-navigation – including sites visited – and other trace data, to support more traditional self-report mechanisms. Our analysis suggests that prior work demonstrating relationships between self-report indicators is not paralleled in investigation of the hypothesized relationships between self-report and trace-indicators. However, there are clear epistemic features of this trace data. The article thus demonstrates the potential of behavioral learning analytic data in understanding how epistemic cognition is brought to bear in rich information seeking and processing tasks

Constraints and Affordances of Online Engagement With Scientific Information—A Literature Review

Many urgent problems that societies currently face—from climate change to a global pandemic—require citizens to engage with scientific information as members of democratic societies as well as to solve problems in their personal lives. Most often, to solve their epistemic aims (aims directed at achieving knowledge and understanding) regarding such socio-scientific issues, individuals search for information online, where there exists a multitude of possibly relevant and highly interconnected sources of different perspectives, sometimes providing conflicting information. The paper provides a review of the literature aimed at identifying (a) constraints and affordances that scientific knowledge and the online information environment entail and (b) individuals\u27 cognitive and motivational processes that have been found to hinder, or conversely, support practices of engagement (such as critical information evaluation or two-sided dialogue). Doing this, a conceptual framework for understanding and fostering what we call online engagement with scientific information is introduced, which is conceived as consisting of individual engagement (engaging on one\u27s own in the search, selection, evaluation, and integration of information) and dialogic engagement (engaging in discourse with others to interpret, articulate and critically examine scientific information). In turn, this paper identifies individual and contextual conditions for individuals\u27 goal-directed and effortful online engagement with scientific information

Internet source evaluation: The role of implicit associations and psychophysiological self-regulation

This study focused on middle school students\u2019 source evaluation skills as a key component of digital literacy. Specifically, it examined the role of two unexplored individual factors that may affect the evaluation of sources providing information about the controversial topic of the health risks associated with the use of mobile phones. The factors were the implicit association of mobile phone with health or no health, and psychophysiological self-regulation as reflected in basal Heart Rate Variability (HRV). Seventy-two seventh graders read six webpages that provided contrasting information on the unsettled topic of the potential health risks related to the use of mobile phones. Then they were asked to rank-order the six websites along the dimension of reliability (source evaluation). Findings revealed that students were able to discriminate between the most and least reliable websites, justifying their ranking in light of different criteria. However, overall, they were little accurate in rank-ordering all six Internet sources. Both implicit associations and HRV correlated with source evaluation. The interaction between the two individual variables was a significant predictor of participants\u2019 performance in rank-ordering the websites for reliability. A slope analysis revealed that when students had an average psychophysiological self-regulation, the stronger their association of the mobile phone with health, the better their performance on source evaluation. Theoretical and educational significances of the study are discussed

The Future of Learning by Searching the Web: Mobile, Social, and Multimodal

Recent technological developments related to the World Wide Web including mobile computing, social media, and online videos are shaping the way we learn. As argued in the present commentary, the majority of educational psychological research that has examined how individuals learn by searching the Web, however, has not kept up with this pace. Therefore, the goal of this commentary is to discuss how recent technological developments might affect how learners acquire knowledge through Web search and to provide a respective research agenda. Specifically, we will focus on the use of mobile devices and digital assistants, social networking sites, and online videos, and the opportunities and challenges they present to learners. In addition, we suggest that future research should study the ongoing learning processes during Web search in greater detail. We believe that examining the research questions raised in the present commentary will uniquely contribute to the literature on Web-based searching and learning.  MP3  Fil

Confirmation Bias in Information Search with Social Tags

Confirmation bias is the tendency of information searchers to select and evaluate information that supports pre-existing attitudes favourably. The current dissertation investigates whether confirmation bias affects health-related search in online environments, where users share content and social tag clouds are the navigation interface for searchers. I assumed that when individuals search health-related issues, they are motivated to find accurate information (accuracy motivation), in contrast to defending their self-concept (defense motivation). To determine what information is accurate, I expect that searchers attend to internal, individual evaluations (prior knowledge, prior attitudes, and attitude confidence), and external, collective cues (tag popularity and source credibility). Regarding the influence of individual evaluations, in studies 2 and 3, a linear influence of prior attitudes on the selection of blog posts (but not tags), and the evaluation of blog posts was found. In studies 2 and 3, I tested whether the influence of prior attitudes was moderated by confidence. I found that high confidence did affect the selection of blog posts but not tags in both studies, and confidence influenced the evaluation of tag-related blog posts. Regarding the influence of the collective cues, tag popularity was manipulated in studies 1 and 3, where I found a main effect of tag popularity on the selection of tags, blog posts, and evaluation of content, showing that tag size influenced confirmation bias in a moderate to strong way. In the student sample (study 2), I found that high credibility reduced the influence of prior attitudes on the selection of tags and consequently blog posts. However, using a representative sample (study 3), no influence of source credibility was found. With respect to the searchers’ evaluation of content, credibility had no influence in study 2, but in study 3, under high source credibility and low attitude confidence, searchers evaluated content more favourably when content was attitude consistent. In conclusion, the present dissertation shows that confirmation bias and individual evaluations guide information searchers in tag-based navigation, extending the literature which showed behaviour in social tagging environments follows semantic associations. The results are interesting for the construction of content aggregation or social tagging platforms, and practitioners who provide health-related online content. Practitioners and platform providers pay attention to their target audience, as this will either elicit accuracy or defense motivation. So, different strategies can be implemented when the aim is to reduce the influence of confirmation bias on information search behaviour.Der Bestätigungsfehler ist die Tendenz Informationen so auszuwählen und zu bewerten, dass bestehende Einstellungen verstärkt werden. In dieser Dissertation untersuche ich, ob der Bestätigungsfehler auch in Online-Umgebungen auftritt, wo Nutzer auf geteilte Inhalte über Social Tag Clouds zugreifen. Personen sollten bei der gesundheitsbezogenen Suche nicht dazu tendieren, dass sie ihr Selbstkonzept aufrechterhalten (Verteidigungsmotiv), sondern sie sollten Inhalte gemäß ihrer Korrektheit auswählen (Genauigkeitsmotiv). Um die Korrektheit der Inhalte einzuschätzen berücksichtigen Nutzer internale, individuelle Bewertungen (Vorwissen, Voreinstellungen, Einstellungsgewissheit), sowie externale, kollektive Reize (Tag Popularität, Glaubwürdigkeit). Dies ist eine bedeutsame Erweiterung zur Literatur Sozialer Tagging Systeme, die bisher ausschließlich den Einfluss semantischer Assoziationen im menschlichen Gedächtnis und den Einfluss aggregierter, kollektiver Assoziationen untersucht. In den Studien 2 und 3 zeigte sich ein linearer Einfluss von Voreinstellungen auf die Auswahl und Bewertung von Blogeinträgen. Hier testete ich auch, ob der Einfluss der Voreinstellungen durch Einstellungsgewissheit moderiert würde. Einstellungsgewissheit beeinflusste die Auswahl von Blogeinträgen und deren Bewertung. In den Studien 1 und 3 zeigte sich ein Effekt der Tag-Popularität auf die Auswahl von Tags, Blogeinträgen und die Bewertung von Inhalten. Außerdem zeigte sich in der Studierendenstichprobe (Studie 2), dass hohe Glaubwürdigkeit den Einfluss von Einstellungen auf die Navigation reduzierte. In Studie 3, mit einer repräsentativen Stichprobe, wurde dies jedoch nicht gefunden. In Bezug auf die Bewertung von Inhalten hatte die Glaubwürdigkeit keinen Einfluss in Studie 2, aber in Studie 3 bewertete die repräsentative Stichprobe von Suchenden bei hoher Glaubwürdigkeit und gleichzeitig geringer Einstellungsgewissheit Inhalte günstiger, wenn sie einstellungs-kongruent waren. Somit zeigte sich, dass Informationssuchende in der Tag-basierten Navigation dem Bestätigungsfehler unterliegen. Dies ist eine bedeutende Erweiterung zur Literatur, die gezeigt hat, dass Informationssuche und Bewertung in Social-Tagging-Umgebungen semantischen Assoziationen folgen. Die vorliegenden Ergebnisse zeigen interessante Implikationen für die Gestaltung von Social-Tagging Plattformen. So ist es beispielsweise wichtig, die Zielgruppe zu berücksichtigen, da sie bestimmt, ob Suchende im gesundheitsbezogenen Kontext durch Genauigkeits- oder Verteidigungsmotive geleitet sind

Constraints and Affordances of Online Engagement With Scientific Information - A Literature Review

Many urgent problems that societies currently face—from climate change to a global pandemic—require citizens to engage with scientific information as members of democratic societies as well as to solve problems in their personal lives. Most often, to solve their epistemic aims (aims directed at achieving knowledge and understanding) regarding such socio-scientific issues, individuals search for information online, where there exists a multitude of possibly relevant and highly interconnected sources of different perspectives, sometimes providing conflicting information. The paper provides a review of the literature aimed at identifying (a) constraints and affordances that scientific knowledge and the online information environment entail and (b) individuals' cognitive and motivational processes that have been found to hinder, or conversely, support practices of engagement (such as critical information evaluation or two-sided dialogue). Doing this, a conceptual framework for understanding and fostering what we call online engagement with scientific information is introduced, which is conceived as consisting of individual engagement (engaging on one's own in the search, selection, evaluation, and integration of information) and dialogic engagement (engaging in discourse with others to interpret, articulate and critically examine scientific information). In turn, this paper identifies individual and contextual conditions for individuals' goal-directed and effortful online engagement with scientific information

Epistemic Justification in Multiple Document Literacy: A Refutation Text Intervention

This study investigated the effects of a refutation text intervention on Norwegian teacher education students’ (n = 150) beliefs about justification for knowing and their subsequent performance on a multiple document literacy task. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions in which they read a refutation text that promoted the conception that an appropriate way to judge the trustworthiness of information about educational topics is to rely on personal understanding and practical experience, the expertise of the author, or comparison of multiple sources. Results showed that participants’ beliefs about epistemic justification were strongly influenced by the intervention. Beyond effects on self-reported justification beliefs, effects on participants’ selection of documents varying in terms of the expertise of the author and the stance toward the issue discussed across the documents were observed, as well as effects on how participants justified their document selections, processed the selected documents, and finally used them in their written task products. As such, the effects of the intervention targeting beliefs about epistemic justification transferred to various stages of the multiple document task.publishedVersio

“This Will Blow Your Mind” : examining the urge to click clickbaits

Integrating the uses and gratifications (U&G) theory, the notion of information richness, and personal epistemology framework, the purpose of this research is to propose and empirically validate a framework which specifies Internet users’ urge to click clickbaits. The hypotheses in the proposed framework were tested using a between-participants experimental design (N=204) that manipulated information richness (text-only vs. thumbnail clickbaits). Curiosity, perceived enjoyment, and surveillance were significant predictors of the urge to click. In terms of information richness, the urge to click was higher for thumbnail vis-a-vis text-only clickbaits. Internet-related epistemic beliefs moderated the relation between the gratification of passing time and the urge to click. This paper represents one of the earliest attempts to investigate Internet users’ urge to click clickbaits. Apart from extending the boundary conditions of the U&G theory, it integrates two other theoretical lenses, namely, the notion of information richness, and personal epistemology framework, to develop and empirically validate a theoretical framework

Down to the source! – Laypersons’ processing and use of differences in relevant source information when confronted with conflicting scientific claims

When reading about scientific topics on the Internet it is common to encounter conflicting knowledge claims rooted in the tentative nature of science, the lacking quality control of online media, or even deliberate misinformation. For laypersons, this poses the challenge of evaluating these scientific claims without being able to draw form the necessary domain knowledge. The research presented in this dissertation aims to investigate source-based strategies of conflict evaluation that laypersons can use even without prior knowledge on the topic at hand. Four experiments with a total of 441 participants were conducted to test how aspects of source information that determine its usefulness in source-based conflict evaluation affect laypersons’ attention to and use of source information when confronted with conflicting scientific claims. In all experiments, the participants were presented with two conflicting claims from different sources while source credibility (based on expertise and/or trustworthiness) was manipulated to either differ or be the same between the sources. It was assumed that differences in sources’ credibility should affect subjective conflict explanation and agreement with the claims as parts of conflict evaluation, and that the underlying source-based evaluation processes can be detected via increased visual attention on source information when differences in sources’ credibility are present. In line with these assumptions, differences in sources’ expertise or trustworthiness led to increased subjective conflict explanation via sources’ competence or motivation and affected agreement with the respective claims. In later experiments that used eye-tracking to measure moment-to-moment processing of source information, differences in sources’ trustworthiness also led to increased visual attention to relevant source information. These findings are discussed in the context of theories from multiple documents comprehension and possible avenues of application, that could help to support laypersons in an informed and self-determined evaluation of scientific conflicts using sourcing, are proposed.Bei der Recherche zu wissenschaftlichen Themen im Internet stößt man häufig auf widersprüchliche Behauptungen, die aufgrund des fragilen und vorläufigen Charakters von Wissenschaft, fehlender Qualitätskontrolle von Online-Medien oder auch absichtlicher Fehlinformation entstanden sein können. Für Laien stellt dies die Herausforderung dar, die widersprüchlichen wissenschaftlichen Behauptungen zu bewerten, ohne auf notwendiges Vorwissen zurückgreifen zu können. Die in dieser Dissertation vorgestellte Forschung zielt darauf ab, quellenbasierte Strategien bei der Bewertung solcher Konflikte zu untersuchen, die Laien auch ohne Vorwissen über das jeweilige Thema nutzen können. In vier Experimenten mit insgesamt 441 Teilnehmern wurde untersucht, wie sich Aspekte von Quelleninformation, die deren Nützlichkeit bei der quellenbasierten Konfliktbewertung mitbestimmen, auf die Aufmerksamkeit und Nutzung von Quelleninformationen durch Laien auswirken, wenn letztere mit widersprüchlichen wissenschaftlichen Aussagen konfrontiert werden. In den Experimenten wurden den Teilnehmern zwei widersprüchliche Behauptungen aus verschiedenen Quellen präsentiert und dabei die Glaubwürdigkeit der Quellen (basierend auf Expertise und/oder Vertrauenswürdigkeit) so manipuliert, dass sie zwischen den Quellen entweder unterschiedlich oder vergleichbar war. Es wurde angenommen, dass Unterschiede in der Glaubwürdigkeit der Quellen die subjektive Konflikterklärung sowie die Zustimmung zu den Behauptungen als Teile von Konfliktbewertung beeinflussen sollten, und dass die zugrundeliegenden quellenbasierten Bewertungsprozesse über eine erhöhte visuelle Aufmerksamkeit auf die Quelleninformation messbar sind, wenn es Unterschiede in der Glaubwürdigkeit der Quellen gibt. In Übereinstimmung mit diesen Annahmen führten Unterschiede in der Expertise oder Vertrauenswürdigkeit der Quellen zu einer erhöhten subjektiven Konflikterklärung über die Kompetenz oder Motivation der Quellen und beeinflussten die Zustimmung zu den jeweiligen Behauptungen. In späteren Experimenten, die Eye-Tracking zur Messung der Verarbeitungsprozesse von Quelleninformationen einsetzten, führten Unterschiede in der Vertrauenswürdigkeit von Quellen zusätzlich zu einer erhöhten visuellen Aufmerksamkeit auf relevante Quelleninformationen. Diese Befunde werden im Kontext von Theorien zum Verstehen multipler Dokumente diskutiert und es werden mögliche Anwendungswege aufgezeigt, die helfen könnten, Laien bei einer informierten und selbstbestimmten Bewertung von wissenschaftlichen Konflikten mit Hilfe der verfügbaren Quelleninformationen zu unterstützen