Effects of the metacognitive computer-tool met.a.ware on the web search of laypersons.
Today, laypersons often consult the Internet to inform themselves about health-related issues. However, the competent use of these often complex and heterogeneous information provisions cannot be taken for granted, because many Internet users are lacking the necessary metacognitive prerequisites. Th...
| Published in: | Computers in Human Behavior Vol. 24; no. 3; pp. 716 - 738 |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article |
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Elsevier Science
May 2008
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=508066667&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 508066667 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 07475632 JC4 jtl: Computers in Human Behavior issn: 07475632 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: May 2008 vid: 24 iid: 3 pid: 2410 pub: Elsevier Science artinfo: ui: 508066667 10.1016/j.chb.2007.01.023 ppf: 716 ppct: 22 formats: tig: atl: Effects of the metacognitive computer-tool met.a.ware on the web search of laypersons. aug: au: Stadtler, Marc Bromme, Rainer su: Information-seeking strategies Metacognition Education software Digital resources in medicine sug: subj: Information-seeking strategies Metacognition Education software Digital resources in medicine ab: Today, laypersons often consult the Internet to inform themselves about health-related issues. However, the competent use of these often complex and heterogeneous information provisions cannot be taken for granted, because many Internet users are lacking the necessary metacognitive prerequisites. Therefore, we developed the metacognitive computer-tool met.a.ware, which supports laypersons' Internet research for medical information by the means of metacognitive prompting and ontological classification. In an experimental investigation of met.a.ware a total of 118 participants with little medical knowledge were asked to conduct an Internet research on a medical topic. Participants were randomly assigned to four experimental groups that worked with met.a.ware and either received evaluation prompts, monitoring prompts, both types of prompts, or no prompts. All experimental conditions were additionally provided with ontological classification. One control group took paper and pencil notes. A further control group took notes using a blank text window. Results showed that laypersons receiving evaluation prompts outperformed controls in terms of knowledge about sources and produced more arguments commenting on the source of information in an essay task. In addition, laypersons receiving monitoring prompts acquired significantly more knowledge about facts, but did not perform better on a comprehension test than the controls. The availability of ontological categories helped to structure the notes laypersons in the conditions working with ontological classification took during Internet research. Analyses of the notes further demonstrated that the availability of ontological categories guided information search in direction of the selected categories. It is concluded, that met.a.ware is an effective tool that supports laypersons' Internet research. Copyright (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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