AFFECTIVE AND COGNITIVE SEARCHING BEHAVIOR OF NOVICE END-USERS OF A FULL-TEXT DATABASE

Novice end users were given 2 hours of training in searching a full-te xt magazine database (Magazine ASAP(TM)) on DIALOG, Subjects searched during three to four sessions in the presence of a trained monitor who prompted them to think aloud throughout the sessions, Qualitative ana lysis of the transcripts and transaction logs yielded empirical inform ation on user variables (purpose, motivation, satisfaction), uses of t he database, move types, and every question users asked during the sea rches, The spontaneous, naturalistic questions were categorized accord ing to affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor speech acts, Results sho w that most of the searches were performed for the self and were work- related, The most common use of the database was to retrieve full-text articles online and to download and print them out rather than read t hem on screen, The majority of searches were judged satisfactory, Inno vative uses included browsing for background information and obtaining contextualized sentences for language teaching, Searchers made twice as many moves to limit sets as moves to expand sets, Affective questio ns outnumbered cognitive and sensorimotor questions by two to one, Thi s preponderance of affective micro-information needs during searching might be addressed by new system functions.