The Search as Learning Spaceship

Toward a Comprehensive Model of Psychological and Technological Facets of Search as Learning

authored by

Johannes von Hoyer, Anett Hoppe, Yvonne Kammerer, Christian Otto, Georg Pardi, Markus Rokicki, Ran Yu, Stefan Dietze, Ralph Ewerth, Peter Holtz

Abstract

Using a Web search engine is one of today’s most frequent activities. Exploratory search activities which are carried out in order to gain knowledge are conceptualized and denoted as Search as Learning (SAL). In this paper, we introduce a novel framework model which incorporates the perspective of both psychology and computer science to describe the search as learning process by reviewing recent literature. The main entities of the model are the learner who is surrounded by a specific learning context, the interface that mediates between the learner and the information environment, the information retrieval (IR) backend which manages the processes between the interface and the set of Web resources, that is, the collective Web knowledge represented in resources of different modalities. At first, we provide an overview of the current state of the art with regard to the five main entities of our model, before we outline areas of future research to improve our understanding of search as learning processes.

Organisation(s)

L3S Research Centre
Visual Analytics Section

External Organisation(s)

Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (IWM)
Media University (HdM) Stuttgart
University Hospital Düsseldorf
GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences
University of Bonn

Type

Review article

Journal

Frontiers in psychology

Volume

13

ISSN

1664-1078

Publication date

15.03.2022

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Psychology(all)

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.827748 (Access: Open)
https://doi.org/10.15488/13015 (Access: Open)