Amount of invested mental effort (AIME) in online searching

Abstract

This research investigates how people’s perceptions of information retrieval (IR) systems, their perceptions of search tasks, and their perceptions of self-efficacy influence the amount of invested mental effort (AIME) they put into using two different IR systems: a Web search engine and a library system. It also explores the impact of mental effort on an end user’s search experience. To assess AIME in online searching, two experiments were conducted using these methods: Experiment 1 relied on self-reports and Experiment 2 employed the dual-task technique. In both experiments, data were collected through search transaction logs, a pre-search background questionnaire, a post-search questionnaire and an interview. Important findings are these: (1) subjects invested greater mental effort searching a library system than searching the Web; (2) subjects put little effort into Web searching because of their high sense of self-efficacy in their searching ability and their perception of the easiness of the Web; (3) subjects did not recognize that putting mental effort into searching was something needed to improve the search results; and (4) data collected from multiple sources proved to be effective for assessing mental effort in online searching.