A multidimensional framework for student searching in algorithmically curated information environments

Pre-service teacher (PST) training is an ideal time to introduce a practical heuristic for thinking critically about science instruction. The construct of epistemic reflexivity or how views of knowledge and ways of knowing lead to practical application, offers a pathway to improve science teaching in the elementary classroom. Nature of scientific knowledge (NOSK) provides a set of vocabulary that reflects foundational truths about the field, while epistemic reflexivity fosters PSTs critical engagement with these constructs and supports their application in teaching. Recent advances in epistemic education, a field that supports epistemic growth, emphasizes engaging teachers in the critical evaluation of knowledge that leads to action. To date, no studies have documented preservice teachers’ use of the (3R–EC) framework (Reflection, Reflexivity, and Resolved Action - Epistemic Cognition) as developed by Lunn Brownlee and colleagues (2017/19) to support epistemic reflexivity. This paper reports the results of a pilot study in a baccalaureate-level teacher induction program where candidates engaged in reflexivity to examine how expert knowledge in science might influence classroom teaching. A written assessment structured around prompts aligned to the (3R–EC) framework was used. After reading scenarios that illustrated the tentative nature of knowledge, candidates answered questions designed to explore (1) the ways they engaged in reflexivity for teaching elementary science using (3R–EC) and (2) the extent to which reflexivity supported their cognition about science instruction. Findings offer a baseline for how epistemic reflexivity enabled candidates to articulate both epistemic (e.g., develop knowledge) and non-epistemic (e.g., develop social skills) aims. Illustrative cases show that while NOSK was widely acknowledged as uncertain, it was enacted in a variety of ways from emphasizing trusted sources to enhancing process skills. Preliminary findings suggest implications for transforming teacher training programs through efforts to make explicit the dual aims of teacher development, balancing epistemic aims (knowledge focused) with non-epistemic aims (social/practical) in science education.

Building on the multidimensional framework of epistemic cognition proposed by Greene et al. (Educational Psychologist 43:142–160, 2008), this study examined beliefs about justification of knowledge claims in science among 65 Norwegian 10th graders. The first research question asked whether beliefs in personal justification, justification by authority, and justification by multiple sources differed in strength among the participants. It was found that the students most strongly believed in justification by authority, followed by justification by multiple sources and personal justification. The second research question asked whether the three types of justification beliefs differentially and uniquely predicted the comprehension of multiple conflicting documents on a science issue. In a multiple regression analysis with multiple-documents comprehension indicated by essay performance as the dependent variable, both personal justification and justification by multiple sources emerged as unique predictors when topic knowledge was controlled for. Specifically, beliefs in personal opinion as a means of justifying knowledge claims in science was negatively related to multiple-documents comprehension, whereas beliefs in justification through corroboration across multiple sources of information were positively related to multiple-documents comprehension. This study provides new evidence about relationships between epistemic beliefs and new literacy competencies needed in an information society, such as integrating across multiple conflicting sources of information; relationships that may also have practical implications.

There is increasing evidence to show that teachers' epistemic cognition is related to how they conceive of and engage in teaching; therefore it is important that teachers develop adaptive epistemic cognition. This article provides an overview of the different ways of theorizing and investigating changes in epistemic cognition for teaching and learning. A growing body of research shows that explicit reflection on epistemic cognition may be a useful way to promote change. Drawing on the work of Lunn Brownlee and Schraw and the Advanced Study Colloquium group described in the introduction to this special issue, we extend the concept of explicit reflection to encompass reflexive thinking. Reflexivity involves critical thinking that evaluates multiple perspectives in context and leads to specific action in the classroom. The 3R-EC Framework (Reflection, Reflexivity and Resolved Action for Epistemic Cognition) for theorizing change in epistemic cognition is described and exemplified in the contexts of classroom practice and teachers' professional learning.

Although relatively unpopular among Indonesian scholars, the study of epistemic cognition has emerged as a major area of research at the intersection of psychology and education. A number of edited books and special editions in respected journals have been dedicated to various issues related to epistemic cognition. However, David Moshman’s “Epistemic Cognition and Development” (henceforth, ECD) is the first textbook which provides a comprehensive introduction to theories and research on epistemic cognition. With this book, Moshman deserves much credit for providing not only valuable insights on a number of key conceptual issues, but also situating those insights within the broader picture of cognitive and developmental theories.

Personalized query suggestion based on user behavior

In this paper, we investigate medical students medical search behavior on a medical domain. We use two behavioral signals: detailed query analysis (qualitative and quantitative) and task completion time to understand how medical students perform medical searches based on varying task complexity. We also investigate how task complexity and topic familiarity affect search behavior. We gathered 80 interactive search sessions from an exploratory survey with 20 medical students. We observe information searching behavior using 3 simulated work task scenarios and 1 personal scenario. We present quantitative results from two perspectives: overall and user perceived task complexity. We also analyze query properties from a qualitative aspect. Our results show task complexity and topic familiarity affect search behavior of medical students. In some cases, medical students demonstrate different search traits on a personal task in comparison to the simulated work task scenarios. These findings help us better understand medical search behavior. Medical search engines can use these findings to detect and adapt to medical students' search behavior to enhance a student's search experience.

While the early years of children’s education have long been acknowledged as crucial in supporting learning and development, there has been less focus on argumentation literacy as a way to promote active learning. This conceptual paper explores a new cross-disciplinary teaching framework, called the kaleidoscope framework of inquiry dialogue, which explicates the role of elementary school children’s collaborative argumentation processes during inquiry dialogue. The two key theories (reflective devices) in the framework include reflexivity and epistemic cognition. Using a kaleidoscope metaphor, we conceive of dynamic theoretical interactions which depend on aspects of children’s collaborative argumentation skills and learning/teaching contexts (the pieces of coloured glass contained within the kaleidoscope) that are in focus at any particular point in time. This paper first discusses inquiry dialogue and collaborative argumentation, followed by an overview of the underlying theories of reflexivity and epistemic cognition used in the kaleidoscope framework. Implications for supporting elementary school children’s collaborative argumentation processes during inquiry are discussed throughout.

There are many existing studies of user behavior in simple tasks (e.g., navigational and informational search) within a short duration of 1--2 queries. However, we know relatively little about user behavior, especially browsing and clicking behavior, for longer search session solving complex search tasks. In this paper, we characterize and compare user behavior in relatively long search sessions (10 minutes; about 5 queries) for search tasks of four different types. The tasks differ in two dimensions: (1) the user is locating facts or is pursuing intellectual understanding of a topic; (2) the user has a specific task goal or has an ill-defined and undeveloped goal. We analyze how search behavior as well as browsing and clicking patterns change during a search session in these different tasks. Our results indicate that user behavior in the four types of tasks differ in various aspects, including search activeness, browsing style, clicking strategy, and query reformulation. As a search session progresses, we note that users shift their interests to focus less on the top results but more on results ranked at lower positions in browsing. We also found that results eventually become less and less attractive for the users. The reasons vary and include downgraded search performance of query, decreased novelty of search results, and decaying persistence of users in browsing. Our study highlights the lack of long session support in existing search engines and suggests different strategies of supporting longer sessions according to different task types.

Persistent difficulties in students’ ability to apply chemical knowledge across contexts suggest limits not to memory but of cognitive flexibility . This paper argues that such flexibility depends on conceptual reframing , understood as the capacity to reinterpret a phenomenon through alternative disciplinary lenses, which in this study take the form of distinct conceptual lenses within chemistry. Drawing on insights from cognitive flexibility theory, epistemic cognition, and philosophy of science, I propose that chemistry's inherently pluralistic structure requires learners to navigate among multiple legitimate modes of reasoning. I describe conceptual reframing as the cognitive process that enables this navigation and link it to mechanisms of context-sensitive activation and conceptual coordination. Building on existing ideas in science and chemistry education, I present curricular and pedagogical suggestions that emphasize recursive, phenomenon-based learning and metacognitive engagement with framing choices. Illustrative examples, such as the teaching of acid–base chemistry, demonstrate how instruction can foster conceptual reframing and knowledge transfer across contexts. Cultivating such pluralistic reasoning, I argue, is key to preparing learners to think adaptively, critically, and reflectively in a complex, interconnected world.

Traditionally, the efficiency and effectiveness of search systems have both been of great interest to the information retrieval community. However, an in-depth analysis on the interplay between the response latency of web search systems and users' search experience has been missing so far. In order to fill this gap, we conduct two separate studies aiming to reveal how response latency affects the user behavior in web search. First, we conduct a controlled user study trying to understand how users perceive the response latency of a search system and how sensitive they are to increasing delays in response. This study reveals that, when artificial delays are introduced into the response, the users of a fast search system are more likely to notice these delays than the users of a slow search system. The introduced delays become noticeable by the users once they exceed a certain threshold value. Second, we perform an analysis using a large-scale query log obtained from Yahoo web search to observe the potential impact of increasing response latency on the click behavior of users. This analysis demonstrates that latency has an impact on the click behavior of users to some extent. In particular, given two content-wise identical search result pages, we show that the users are more likely to perform clicks on the result page that is served with lower latency.

Personalized Web search is an effective means of providing specific results to different users when they submit the same query. How to obtain user's real-time information need is a key issue in personalized search. Existing methods concentrate more on the building user profile based on Web pages/documents which affects the efficiency of search engine. In addition, dynamics of user profile is often ignored. To address this problem, we introduce an approach that captures the user context to accurately provide preferences of users for effective personalized search in this paper. First, short-term query context is generated from Web-snippets to play a role of semantic background of user's search behavior, identifying related concepts of the query. Second, user context snap is built based on query context according to user's interactive search behavior. Finally, evolution of user context is considered by introducing forgetting factor to merge the independent user context snap in a user session. The experimental results fully demonstrate that our approach can successfully build user context according to individual user information need.

Expectation disconfirmation refers to the situation where a user's perceived performance of a system disconfirms her original expectation. Previous information systems studies have demonstrated that expectation disconfirmation can significantly affect a system user's behavior and experience. Inspired by this finding, we go beyond the traditional approach that focuses on the final post-search perception and study the expectation disconfirmation problem in Web search. Our study investigates task difficulty expectation disconfirmation and demonstrates that: (1) unexpectedly difficult task can significantly decrease a user's perceived level of search success and increase the perceived time pressure; (2) the size and direction of task difficulty expectation disconfirmation are significantly associated with Web search behavior; (3) it is possible to predict the state of expectation disconfirmation (especially the negative, unexpectedly difficult cases) based on search behavioral features. This study demonstrates the value of integrating expectation disconfirmation approach with interactive IR research and thus may encourage future researchers to further explore the effects of other aspects of users' expectations and post-search perceptions.

Legal case retrieval is a specialized IR task aiming to retrieve supporting cases given a query case. While recent research efforts are committed to improving the automatic retrieval models' performances, little attention has been paid to the practical search interactions between users and systems in this task. Therefore, we focus on investigating user behavior in the scenario of legal case retrieval. Specifically, we conducted a laboratory user study that involved 45 participants majoring in law to collect users' rich interactions and relevance assessments. With the collected data, we first analyzed the characteristics of the search process in legal case retrieval practice. We observed significant differences between legal case retrieval and general web search in various search behavior. These differences highlight the necessity of in-depth investigating user behavior in legal case retrieval and re-thinking the application of related mechanisms developed based on the user models in Web search. Then we investigated factors that would influence search behavior from different perspectives, including task difficulty and domain expertise. Finally, we shed light on implicit feedback in legal case retrieval and designed a predictive model for relevance based on user behavior. Our work provides a better understanding of user interactions in the legal case retrieval process, which can benefit the design of the corresponding retrieval systems to support legal practitioners.

This chapter aims to master web mining and Information Retrieval (IR) in the digital age, thus describing the overviews of web mining and web usage mining; the significance of web mining in the digital age; the overview of IR; the concept of Collaborative Information Retrieval (CIR); the evaluation of IR systems; and the significance of IR in the digital age. Web mining can contribute to the increase in profits by selling more products and by minimizing costs. Web mining is the application of data mining techniques to discover the interesting patterns from web data in order to better serve the needs of web-based multifaceted applications. Mining web data can improve the personalization, create the selling opportunities, and lead to more profitable relationships with customers in global business. Web mining techniques can be applied with the effective analysis of the clearly understood business needs and requirements. Web mining builds the detailed customer profiles based on the transactional data. Web mining is used to create the personalized search engines which can recognize the individuals' search queries by analyzing and profiling the web user's search behavior. IR is the process of obtaining relevant information from a collection of informational resources. IR has considerably changed with the expansion of the Internet and the advent of modern and inexpensive graphical user interfaces and mass storage devices. The effective IR system, including an active indexing system, not only decreases the chances that information will be misfiled but also expedites the retrieval of information. Regarding IR utilization, the resulting time-saving benefit increases office efficiency and productivity while decreasing stress and anxiety. Most IR systems provide the advanced searching capabilities that allow users to create the sophisticated queries. The chapter argues that applying web mining and IR has the potential to enhance organizational performance and reach strategic goals in the digital age.

A number of recent reports have emphasized neuropyschological symptoms in ALS, including frontal functions, memory and attention. We investigated visual search behaviour of ALS in two types of tasks: a simple, relatively effortless parallel search task and a more complex attention-demanding serial search task. Behavioural parameters and cognitive event-related potentials (ERP) from 19 scalp channels were obtained from 13 ALS patients and 13 matched controls during task performance. ALS patients showed the same target detection rates as controls in the parallel task but were significantly impaired in the serial task. Performance was slower in the patients than in the controls. This slowing could be attributed to cognitive rather than motor impairments, by inspection of the latency of the P3 component, which was delayed by 120 ms in the patients. In addition, the ERPs in the serial task showed a grossly reduced P3 amplitude, indicating disturbed stimulus evaluation in the patients under these conditions. Changes of an early attention-sensitive ERP component suggest an attention deficit underlying the disturbances in search behaviour.