Learning to Read in a Digital World

Location of navigation menus in websites: an experimental study with Arabic users

Published online: 31 October 2015 While Arabic users represent by far the fastest growing language population on the Internet, research about how the peculiarities of Arabic language may shape users’ web interactions is still scarce. The preferences of Arabic users for menu location in websites have been studied. Two competing arguments have been proposed regarding the best location of menus in websites: conventional design (navigation menu should be placed on that side where users expect it based on previous experience) and reading direction (navigation menu should be placed on that side where readers are used to start off reading, so that the navigation menu is likely to be attended first…

Introduction to the special issue ‘How adolescents read and learn on the Web: internal and external factors (Introducción al número especial ‘Cómo leen y aprenden los adolescentes en la red: factores internos y externos’)

The World Wide Web has become a major information resource for adolescents (i.e., 10–19 years of age), offering an unprecedented amount of information on virtually any topic. While the Web can pote...

IWILDS'20

Web search is one of the most ubiquitous online activities and often used for learning purposes, i.e., to extend one's knowledge or skills about certain topics or procedures. The importance of learning as an outcome of Web search has been recognized in research at the intersection of information retrieval, human-computer interaction, psychology, and educational sciences. Search as Learning (SAL) research examines relationships between querying, navigation, and reading behavior during Web search and the resulting learning outcomes, and how they can be measured, predicted, and supported. IWILDS aims to provide a platform to the interdisciplinary SAL community, with the objective to bring toge…

Searching the Web for conflicting topics: Page and user factors

Web users tend to search only the pages displayed at the top of the search engine results page (the 'top link' heuristic). Although it might be reasonable to use this heuristic to navigate simple and unambiguous facts, it might be risky when searching for conflicting socio-scientific topics, such as potential measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In the present study, we explored the extent to which students consider other Web page characteristics, such as topic relevance and trustworthiness, when searching and bookmarking pages concerning a conflicting topic. We also examined the extent to which prior background knowledge moderates students' behavior. The results revealed that while…

Sixth graders’ evaluation strategies when reading Internet search results : an eye-tracking study

Eye-tracking technology was used to examine Internet search result evaluation strategies adopted by sixth-grade students (N = 36) during ten experimental information search tasks. The relevancy of the search result’s title, URL, and snippet components was manipulated and selection of search results as well as looking into probabilities on the search result components was analysed. The results revealed that during first-pass inspection, students read the search engine page by first looking at the title of a search result. If the title was relevant, the probability of looking at the snippet of the search result increased. During second-pass inspection, there was a high probability of students…