Changes Before and After Search of Users' Knowledge Structures on a Topic:

Analysis Using the Concept-Map

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the changes in the users' mental representations of a topic during their exploratory search on the Web. This was done by comparing the concept maps depicted before and after each users searching. Participants were instructed to search for and gather Web pages for the task of writing a term paper on two given topics, ecology and trip, while working in either of two conditions: divergent and convergent. A comparative analysis of the concept maps between the pre- and post-search maps indicated that the users in the divergent condition changed their knowledge widely and the users in the convergent condition changed their knowledge deeply. The results also showed that there were more nodes, links, and link labels in the trip task than in the ecology task.