Understanding Information Search Processes in the Context of Academic Literature Searche

Current search engines and information retrieval systems have made extraordinary progress towards interpreting and answering well-defined, direct questions. However, they are often unsatisfactory for assisting users with less well-defined information needs that often occur within an academic context. Examining students' search goals and search behaviors can provides insight into information search strategies and tactics. Understanding these behaviors can also help inform the design of search systems in order to better present information to users with these types of information needs. This research examines case studies of graduate students conducting academic literature searches. Screen recordings and individually coded interactions were qualitatively analyzed for emergent search behaviors and evolution of goal refinement while searching for information on a broad topic of interest. Student concept maps representing their visual organization of the documents they found were compared to topic maps algorithmically generated from the same documents. Findings from observations of participants' search sessions are distilled into a set of design recommendations for search systems that can be applied to better address the needs of those searching for academic publications and information.