Document Type : Original Article
Author
bahonar university
Abstract
Objective: Determination of the role of contextual factors in the web search behavior and recognition of the pattern of web information retrieval behavior of complementary studies students in various departments of Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman.
Methodology: this study is an applied research which has been performed with semi-experimental, cross-sectional method (analytical-descriptive) and with a combined approach. The study population includes 37 complementary studies students studying in various departments of Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman in 2017-2018 who were selected with purposeful sampling method. The study has been performed with the aid of two-question scenario. The quantitative data was collected with questionnaire with internal reliability coefficient higher than 0.7 whose validity was confirmed by 5 professors and 3 Ph.D. students and the qualitative data was collected with search and event logging files. Recording the search films was performed with Camtasia studio 9. The quantitative data was statistically analyzed with SPSS 23 software and the qualitative data was textually analyzed with maxqda 10 software. For analysis of the quantitative data, the statistical methods of single-sample t-test and two-independent-sample t-test and variance analysis and chi-square and for analysis of the qualitative data, qualitative content analysis has been used.
Findings: quantitative findings showed that the most of the subjects(29=%78.4) ae in M. A. level of education. Most of the subjects’occupation(%90) depends much and very much on information. The research purpose with the average of 3. 20 was considered as the most important purpose of web searching. Most of the subjects’experience(21=%56. 8) is in medium and desireable level with searching in web. The qualitative findings showed that the users completed each search in a 5-stage pattern: beginning of search, keywords codification, search guide, retrieval and evaluation of the results, information extraction.
Results: the results showed that the contextual factors impacts the subjects' web search behavior and have changed their information retrieval behavior. The most similar patterns are related to the factor of job and the most different patterns are related to the factor of search objective and motivation. So, the factor of objective and motivation is the most influential factor in web search in the subjects. Also, as task complexity increases, more queries and eventually more nodes are visited.
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