Examining and supporting laypeople's learning in online health information seeking

It has long been understood that knowledge acquisition is an important component in the information seeking process [2, 18]. Further, empirical studies have demonstrated that learning is a common phenomenon in information seeking [8, 10, 20]. However, for users, especially laypeople, who must gain knowledge through their interactions with a search engine, the current general-purpose search engine does not sufficiently support learning through search. Health information seeking (HIS, hereafter) is a domain-specific search [14], where users who possess higher knowledge tend to have better strategies and performances in solving their search tasks [3, 21]. While learning clearly plays an important role in the HIS process, there has been little research in this area. Little is known about the factors that might enhance or impede such learning during online HIS. Therefore, this project aims at examining health consumers, especially laypeople's search as learning behaviors and performances. A mixed method design will be adopted, consisting of experimental-based studies and interviews. So far, we have conducted 24 user studies and semi-structured interviews, investigating the source selection behaviors in the HIS tasks with increasing levels of learning goals. The results of this phase of the study will be used to guide the following analysis and predict laypeople's knowledge levels in the HIS process and provide corresponding support.