Task-based information interaction evaluation: The viewpoint of program theory

Kalervo Järvelin, Pertti Vakkari, Paavo Arvola, Feza Baskaya, Anni Järvelin, Jaana Kekäläinen, Heikki Keskustalo, Sanna Kumpulainen, Miamaria Saastamoinen, Reijo Savolainen, Eero Sormunen

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

    55 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Evaluation is central in research and development of information retrieval (IR). In addition to designing and implementing new retrieval mechanisms, one must also show through rigorous evaluation that they are effective. A major focus in IR is IR mechanisms' capability of ranking relevant documents optimally for the users, given a query. Searching for information in practice involves searchers, however, and is highly interactive. When human searchers have been incorporated in evaluation studies, the results have of ten suggested that better ranking does not necessarily lead to better search task, or work task, performance. Therefore, it is not clear which system or interface features should be developed to improve the effectiveness of human task performance. In the present article, we focus on the evaluation of task-based information interaction (TBII). We give special emphasis to learning tasks to discuss TBII in more concrete terms. Information interaction is here understood as behavioral and cognitive activities related to task planning, searching information items, selecting between them, working with them, and synthesizing and reporting. These five generic activities contribute to task performance and outcome and can be supported by information systems. In an attempt toward task-based evaluation, we introduce program theory as the evaluation framework. Such evaluation can investigate whether a program consisting of TBII activities and tools works and how it works and, further, provides a causal description of program (in)effectiveness. Our goal in the present article is to structure TBII on the basis of the five generic activities and consider the evaluation of each activity using the program theory framework. Finally, we combine these activity-based program theories in an overall evaluation framework for TBII. Such an evaluation is complex due to the large number of factors affecting information interaction. Instead of presenting tested program theories, we illustrate how the evaluation of TBII should be accomplished using the program theory framework in the evaluation of systems and behaviors, and their interactions, comprehensively in context.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number3
    JournalACM Transactions on Information Systems
    Volume33
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2015
    Publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

    Keywords

    • Experimentation
    • Human factors
    • Task-based information interaction
    • Theory
    • evaluation
    • information retrieval

    Publication forum classification

    • Publication forum level 3

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