Modeling The Knowledge Construction Process Of Exploratory Search

Exploratory search is the key to personal knowledge innovation.During exploratory search processes,the users are not only in the collection of information,more involved in learning and knowledge construction.However,the current information retrieval system is not powerful enough for the support of exploratory search,which means the users learn and construct knowledge during the exploratory search processes with lack of the assistance of information retrieval system.How to design a system that can support the users’ knowledge construction or design the function of assisting users’ sense-making processes is a question worthy of study.In the process of exploratory search,the change of internal knowledge structure is not easy to observe,and few studies address the changes of knowledge structure in the process of exploratory search.As a fundamental part of the NSFC project titled "’Interactive information retrieval system based on personalized knowledge map-from the perspective of user cognition"(No.71573196),this paper makes a deep research on the change of knowledge structure in the process of exploratory search based on the grounded theory approach.This study collects users’ think-aloud protocols,the concept maps,the post-interview data and the final reports.Through the exhaustive analysis of the think-aloud protocols and the interview transcripts,the author carries on open coding,axial coding,selective coding to construct the knowledge construction process model of exploratory search process,which describes how users construct knowledge structure step by step.By coding the cognitive activities that take place in the exploratory search,cognitive elements of the whole search process were emphasized.This allowed for the formal expression of knowledge structure to be proposed,which enables the design of quantitative indicators for evaluating knowledge structure.The contribution of present research has two aspects.Firstly,the knowledge construction process model of exploratory search and the cognitive elements contribute a valuable insight into the theory of knowledge construction in exploratory search and thus help the designers gain better understanding of the knowledge construction process,so as to further inform the development of information search system.Secondly,the formal expression of the knowledge structure contributes in evaluation of the knowledge structure of the user and helps users better assess the perfection of their own knowledge structure.