The need for qualitative methods in online user research in a digital library environment

Online users of digital libraries are multi-local, multi-lingual and live in multiple time-zones. Getting "purposeful data" in online user research requires that the research be done online because the users are there. This content analysis looks at a broad sample of international publications to address the following two research questions: 1) what methods do we use for online user research and 2) what are the purposes behind the research questions? The poster suggests that we currently use methods that match poorly to the purpose of the study and that there is a real need to use qualitative methods to study online users to be able to produce purposeful data

When It’s Okay That I Don’t Play: Social Norms and the Situated Construal of Social Exclusion

Being excluded and ignored has been shown to threaten fundamental human needs and cause pain. Such reflexive reactions to social exclusion have been conceptualized as direct and unmoderated (temporal need threat model of ostracism). Here, we propose an extension and argue that reflexive reactions depend on how social exclusion situations are construed. If being excluded is understood as a violation of an inclusion norm, individuals will react with pain and threat. In contrast, if being excluded is consistent with the prevailing norm, the exclusion situation is interpreted as less threatening, and negative reflexive reactions to ostracism should be attenuated. Four studies empirically support this conceptual model. Studies 3 and 4 further show that to guide situated construal, the norm has to be endorsed by the individual. In both Studies 1 and 3, the effect of the norm is mediated by the objective situation’s subjective construal

A general model of fluency effects in judgment and decision making

Processing or cognitive fluency is the experienced ease of ongoing mental processes. This experience infl uences a wide range of judgments and decisions. We present a general model for these fluency effects. Based on Brunswik’s lens-model, we conceptualize fluency as a meta-cognitive cue. For the cue to impact judgments, we propose three process steps: people must experience fluency; the experience must be attributed to a judgment-relevant source; and it must be interpreted within the judgment context. This interpretation is either based on available theories about the experience’s meaning or on the learned validity of the cue in the given context. With these steps the model explains most fl uency effects and allows for new and testable predictions

It takes time (not money) to understand: Money reduces attentiveness to common ground in communication

Communication is a central part of social life. Successful communication requires going beyond the semantic meaning of words by being attentive to the interaction's common ground, that is, considering what actors know and believe to be mutually known about the situation. Drawing on previous literature suggesting that thoughts about money reduce social interaction whereas thoughts about time increase it, we propose that thinking about money compared to time reduces attentiveness towards the common ground. In support of this, we find that individuals who had been thinking about money compared to time were less likely to interpret two similar questions as distinct, even though asking the same question twice would be violating conversational norms (Study 1). Moreover, they were less likely to note ambiguity in a euphemistic description (Study 2), thus illustrating that lower attentiveness to the interaction's common ground can be a double-edged sword

Processing Fluency in Education: How Metacognitive Feelings Shape Learning, Belief Formation, and Affect

Processing fluency—the experienced ease with which a mental operation is performed has attracted little attention in educational psychology, despite its relevance. The present article reviews and integrates empirical evidence on processing fluency that is relevant to school education. Fluency is important, for instance, in learning, self-assessment of knowledge, testing, grading, teacher–student communication, social interaction in the multicultural classroom, and emergence of interest. After a brief overview of basic fluency research we review effects of processing fluency in three broad areas: metacognition in learning, belief formation, and affect. Within each area, we provide evidence-based implications for education. Along the way, we offer fluency-based insights into phenomena that were long known but not yet sufficiently explained (e.g., the effect of handwriting on grading). Bringing fluency (back) to education may contribute to research and school practice alike

How things fit together: a general model of the information behaviour field

Anyone new to a research field may easily feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of new concepts and must struggle with how things fit together. The aim of this paper is to initiate a discussion about a new general model for information behaviour as a field, and to serve both as an introduction and as a tool to highlight understudied areas within the field. The paper compares previous general models, textbooks, and a subject index with standard definitions of information behaviour. Based on the analysis, a new general model of the information behaviour field is developed. A comparative analysis was used. The paper argues that the existing general models of information behaviour do not reflect the breadth of the field as seen in community-accepted definitions of information behaviour. The analysis also shows that topics like information discovery and information seeking are overrepresented in textbooks and subject indices. The new model illustrates the breadth of the field, explains how topics fit together and highlights research areas that are in special need of attention.Peer Reviewe

The iSchool community: a case study of iconference reviews

A fair review process is essential to the success of any scientific conference. In this paper we present an analysis of the reviewing process of the 2014-2015 iConferences as well as a demographic analysis of the iConference community as a whole. The results show a clear need for making the reviewer pool more representative of the iSchool community as a whole by including more women and more researchers from Asian institutions. Other recommendations are to improve the continuity of the reviewer pool and to provide clearer instructions to reviewers to ensure that written reviews explicitly cover all the aspects represented by the review scores. The results of our study provide the iSchool community with a descriptive analysis of its community and a better understanding of its review process

Less than I expected and oh so true? On the interplay between expectations and framing effects in judgments of truth

This article investigates the negativity bias in truth judgments, which holds that negatively (vs. positively) framed statements are more likely to be judged true. Throughout four studies we find that expectations moderate the negativity bias. In particular, Study 1 failed to replicate the negativity bias with standard items. In Study 2 we investigated individuals' expectations regarding the statements. When systematically adjusting the percentages in negatively framed statements to be lower than expected, a negativity bias occurred in Study 3. Building on this knowledge in Study 4, we systematically decreased and increased percentages in both framing conditions, investigating the impact of under- versus overestimation. While expectations had no consistent effects for positive frames, overestimation (vs. underestimation) led to a higher likelihood of perceived truth in the negative framing condition. Results are discussed in context of current research on language and social psychology as well as post-truth politics