Abstract
ABSTRACT
This study aims to examine users' knowledge change characteristics and knowledge change process, and examined factors that may influence users' knowledge change process. A user search experiment was conducted, in which participants were asked to search for two learning‐related search tasks and use a mind‐map to organize their thoughts during the search process. Pre‐ and post‐search questionnaires were distributed to collect users' self‐assessed topic familiarity and task difficulty. Besides the overall knowledge change process by all the users, we identified four types of knowledge change styles using a hierarchical clustering method: Early knowledge change, Medium‐term knowledge change, Late knowledge change and Average knowledge change. In addition, we found that task type, task difficulty in information integration and difficulty in drawing the mind‐map had significant influences on users' knowledge change styles. This study took a process perspective to characterize users' knowledge change at different stages and shed light on when and how learning occurs during the search process.