The dynamics of interactive information retrieval, Part II: An empirical study from the activity theory perspective

Abstract

Human information-seeking behavior is complicated. Activity theory is a powerful theoretical instrument to untangle the "complications." Based on activity theory, a comprehensive framework is proposed in Part I (Y. Xu, 2007) of this report to describe interactive information retrieval (IIR) behavior. A set of propositions is also proposed to describe the mechanisms governing users' cognitive activity and the interaction between users' cognitive states and manifested retrieval behavior. An empirical study is carried out to verify the propositions. The authors' experimental simulation of 81 participants in one search session indicates the propositions are largely supported. Their findings indicate IIR behavior is planned. Users adopt a divide-and-conquer strategy in information retrieval. The planning of information retrieval activity is also partially manifested in query revision tactics. Users learn from previously read documents. A user's interaction with a system ultimately changes the user's information need and the resulting relevance judgment, but the dynamics of topicality perception and novelty perception occur at different paces.

Order effect in relevance judgment

“…This study suggests that the cognitive dynamics of relevance judgment is a result of the interaction between scheduled subneeds of a search task, the documents encountered, and their presentational order. This finding is consistent with the activity theorybased view (Xu, 2007b;Xu & Liu, 2007) that the dynamics of relevance judgment should be studied by considering both the externalization of scheduled subneeds (i.e., querying on IR systems) and the internalization of documents encountered (i.e., judging and learning of documents). Although the dynamic nature of a user's relevance judgment has been recognized in the literature (Ingwersen, 1992;Xu, 2007b), there is a paucity of empirical statistical evidence demonstrating the actual pattern of the dynamics.…”

“…In other words, a general information need for a search task is broken down into a set of subneeds corresponding to a set of subtasks. Users adopt a divide-and-conquer strategy; their switches between queries reflect the changing focus on various subtasks (Bates, 1990;Xu & Liu, 2007). Based on this conceptualization of user behavior, we can infer that at a particular moment, a user focuses mainly on one specific information subneed.…”

The dynamics of interactive information retrieval behavior, Part I: An activity theory perspective

“…I conclude with a set of propositions for IIR behavior based on the framework. In Part II (Xu & Liu, 2007), an empirical study is reported to verify the propositions presented in Part I, and further detail is provided.…”

Multidimensional Models of Information Need

“…The volatility and subjectivity of novelty implies that an IR system constantly has to monitor a user's behavior to capture and incorporate the novelty aspect of a user's information need. Empirical studies (Xu & Liu, 2007) have confirmed that novelty is more volatile than topicality in a search session.…”