Design experiment on two information retrieval learning environments

Design experiment on two information retrieval (IR) learning environments is presented. The participants in the study (n=57), were undergraduate students of information studies at the university. The pedagogical design of the experimental learning environment was based on the ideas from anchored instruction and intentional scaffolding. Anchoring related the search exercises to a simulated journalistic work-task situation. Scaffolding, i.e. various ways of supporting learners in proceeding with their task was provided by an instructional tool, the Query Performance Analyzer, or by a teacher. The pedagogical design of the traditional learning environment consisted of search exercises on several operational IR systems with unintentional scaffolding. The effect of the learning environments on the students’ learning experiences, performance and learning outcomes was evaluated. The evaluation was based on seven different datasets gathered in the course. Students in the experimental learning environment took the view that anchored instruction increased meaningfulness of learning tasks. The overall effectiveness of queries in the search exercises was slightly better and the students made far fewer semantic knowledge errors and change in conceptual IR know-how was also larger than in the student group in the traditional learning environment. Students from both environments made quite the same number of syntactic knowledge errors.