1. Athabasca University School of Computing and Information Science
Effects of Individual Differences and Visual Information Seeking on Learning Strategies in Essay Writing
Nathan Laan
Athabasca University School of Computing and Information Science

2. MSc in Computing and Information Science Thesis
Mini Proposal
Detailed Proposal and Literature Review
Thesis Proposal Defense
Experimental Protocol
Experimental Tools Development
Research Ethics Application and Approval
Experiment
Analysis (In progress)
COMP676
COMP677
COMP678
COMP679
COMP680

3. Supervisory Committee
Dr. Dunwei Wen
Associate Professor, School of Computing & Information Systems, Athabasca University
Dr. Dragan Gašević
Professor, Schools of Education and Informatics, University of Edinburgh
Dr. Phil Winne
Associate Dean, Graduate Studies in Education, Simon Fraser University
Professor, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University

4. Effects of Individual Differences and Visual Information Seeking
Exploring Individual Differences:
Achievement Goal Orientation
Need for Cognition
Prior Knowledge
Visual Information
Term-net (Concept Map)
Investigate how users explore topics
Explore how users construct search queries

5. Experiment Overview Informed consent.
Provision of anonymous login account for the participant.
Structured tutorial.
Pre-experiment Achievement Goal Orientation questionnaire.
Pre-experiment Need for Cognition questionnaire.
Pre-experiment Knowledge Assessment questionnaire.
Participants provided with topic ("security technology“).
Graph-based Term-net and Search tool.
Participants use tools to research topic and write word essay.
Post-experiment Search Tool Evaluation Perceived Usefulness questionnaire.
Post-experiment Term-net Perceived Usefulness questionnaire.

7. Term-net

8. Research Ethics Approval
The Chicken and the Egg!
Research conducted at Kings University and NAIT in Edmonton.
Athabasca required Research Ethics Approval from NAIT and Kings.

9. Data, Data, and more Data 78 Variables per Participant
Pre-Test Achievement Goal Orientation:
AGO01, … , AGO18, AGOG1, AGOG2, AGOG3, TotalAGO
Pre-Test Knowledge Assessment:
KA01, … , KA06, TotalKA
Pre-Test Need for Cognition:
NFC01, … , NFC18, TotalNFC
Post-Test Perceived Usefulness Search Tool:
PUST01, … , PUST06, TotalPUST
Post-Test Perceived Usefulness Term-Net:
PUTN01, … , PUTN06, TotalPUTN
TotalTerms, TotalTermLinks, AverageTermLinksPerTerm
TotalSearches, TotalSearchLinks, AverageSearchLinksPerSearch
TotalPages (TotalViews)
MinPageViewTime, MaxPageViewTime, AveragePageViewTime
Elapsed Time Exploring

10. Essay Scores

11. Achievement Goal Orientation Scores

12. Prior Knowledge Scores

13. Correlation Analysis (y = Essay Score)
Dependent (x)
Spearman’s Correlation
AGO 1
0.7176
AGO 2
0.7083
AGO 3
0.6705
AGO Total
0.6911
Prior Knowledge
0.1626
Need for Cognition
0.0733
Number of Terms
0.5749
Number of Searches
0.3203
Total Elapsed Time
0.7396
Number Searches < 66
0.6018
Elapsed Time < 1500
0.8740

14. Multiple Linear Regression Analysis
Dependent (x)
R Squared
AGO1
AGO2
AGO3
0.7152
Prior Knowledge
0.8507
Total Elapsed Time
Elapsed Time < 1500
0.9275

15. Next Steps Multiple Linear Regression Analysis
Beta and Statistical Significance Values
Akaike Information Criterion (AIC)
Iterative method to select the model with the best predictor.
Measures quality of statistical models.
Hypothesis – Essay Score Predicted by:
AGO
Prior Knowledge
Total Elapsed Time
Elapsed Time < 1500