I am updating my online course Research Strategies Students Need to Know. In doing so, I revisited a good article I had read a few years ago. This item is Characterize the influence of domain expertise on web search behavior (link opens PDF) written by White, Dumais and Teevan at Microsoft Research. They found that domain experts (domain referring to topic) conducted searches with more branching than non-experts.
Branching is defined as “the number of visits to previous pages in the session that were then followed by movement to a previously unvisited page in the session”.
Additionally, domain experts’ research sessions consistently include more pages, more queries, and more overall time.
The findings of White, Dumais, and Teevan were consistent with the findings of previous researchers on the subject, including Ingrid Hsieh-Yee, cited by White, Dumais, and Teevan. In 1993 Ingrid Hsieh-Yee found that students used their own search terms more and fewer external suggestions when researching topics for which they had prior expert knowledge.
What does this mean for teachers and students?
It would be unfair to expect students to be “experts” before searching the web. However, it can be helpful for students to acquire a little more prior knowledge of a topic before freeing them to search the web for information on that topic. This can be done using reading materials provided by the teacher. This can also be done by mastering certain vocabulary terms before embarking on a search. Increased prior knowledge could cause students to have more branching in their research habits.