| Although end-user searching is not a new phenomenon, there has been little research on whether and how end-user searching behaviour changes with the increase of search experience. This study investigated the effects of end-user search experience on searching behaviour in the use of an online information retrieval system by monitoring the searches of a group of end users over an extended period of time. Searching behaviour was examined in these aspects: searcher command and feature repertoires, language usage patterns (command and feature use frequencies, state chains of first to third orders, and search effort measures), error patterns, search speed, learning approaches, and attitudes towards the search system. Since every data collection method has its limitations, a combined approach was adopted. Data were collected by monitoring a group of law students at the University of Toronto searching the QUICKLAW system over a one-year period (during 1992 and 1993) and by surveying the participants regarding their use of the search system during the period.;Results showed that search experience affected several aspects of end-user behaviour. With the increase of experience, participants' command and feature repertoires, i.e., the set of commands and the set of features such as Boolean operators and truncation used, became larger. The repertoire increases were significant in most cases. Overall language usage patterns changed as searchers became more experienced, as reflected by significant differences in the frequency distributions of commands and features used. No significant differences were found among searchers of different experience levels in search effort variables such as the number of cycles per search topic and the number of documents viewed per cycle.;Results also showed that participants' search speeds increased with experience and these increases were significant in most cases. As to learning approaches, i.e., the methods used to review previously learned information and to get new information about the system, participants tended to choose to rely more on independent means such as online help, rather than consulting other people, as they became more experienced. Experience did not result in searchers making fewer errors or being helped to recover from errors. |
