Inducing expertise in history doctoral students via information retrieval design

In a previous study of doctoral history students, I observed that a common practice of these students was to collect names of people from the era and geographical area they were studying, then to place data about these names on 3 x 5-inch index cards. The names and data about the names were used as access points to the material the student was reading, but they also seemed to induce a cognitive effect that was advantageous to the student's task p erformance. This article investigates the cognitive effect that results fi- om collecting names when the doctoral students recognized patterns among th e data elements written down on the 3 x 5-inch index cards. The pattern rec ognition leads to original thesis formation and expert thinking, which is a requirement of a doctoral dissertation. This article describes this techni que of name collecting, illustrates it with a case study from a larger stud y of doctoral history students, then uses schemata theory and theories on e xpert cognition to create a theory that explains how the name collecting be havior induces expert thinking in the novice student. Finally, the article describes a design concept for an information retrieval system device speci fically designed to facilitate the history student's names-collecting activ ity and to induce expert thinking.