Effects of headings and familiarity with a text on strategies for searching a text

College students were videotaped while they searched chapter-length texts for answers to specific questions. The texts either did not contain headings or contained one of three types of headings that varied in the information that they provided about text organization and content. Familiarity with the text was varied by manipulating (1) the number of prior searches of the text and (2) whether or not the text was read before searching. Measures were taken of the time spent examining each page and of the sequence of examination of pages. Cluster analyses of the search measures revealed that familiarity with the text influenced a searcher’s strategy for selecting which pages to examine. Once a page was selected for examination, both headings and familiarity influenced how the page was inspected.

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