TY - JOUR TI - Children's query types and reformulations in Google search AU - Bilal, Dania AU - Gwizdka, Jacek T2 - Information Processing & Management AB - We investigated the searching behaviors of twenty-four children in grades 6, 7, and 8 (ages 11–13) in finding information on three types of search tasks in Google. Children conducted 72 search sessions and issued 150 queries. Children's phrase- and question-like queries combined were much more prevalent than keyword queries (70% vs. 30%, respectively). Fifty two percent of the queries were reformulations (33 sessions). We classified children's query reformulation types into five classes based on the taxonomy by Liu et al. (2010). We found that most query reformulations were by Substitution and Specialization, and that children hardly repeated queries. We categorized children's queries by task facets and examined the way they expressed these facets in their query formulations and reformulations. Oldest children tended to target the general topic of search tasks in their queries most frequently, whereas younger children expressed one of the two facets more often. We assessed children's achieved task outcomes using the search task outcomes measure we developed. Children were mostly more successful on the fact-finding and fully self-generated task and partially successful on the research-oriented task. Query type, reformulation type, achieved task outcomes, and expressing task facets varied by task type and grade level. There was no significant effect of query length in words or of the number of queries issued on search task outcomes. The study findings have implications for human intervention, digital literacy, search task literacy, as well as for system intervention to support children's query formulation and reformulation during interaction with Google. DA - 2018/11/01/ PY - 2018 DO - 10.1016/j.ipm.2018.06.008 DP - ScienceDirect VL - 54 IS - 6 SP - 1022 EP - 1041 J2 - Information Processing & Management SN - 0306-4573 UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306457317308889 Y2 - 2018/07/21/21:50:12 KW - Children's web search KW - Digital literacy KW - Query reformulation taxonomy KW - Query reformulation type KW - Query type KW - Search task literacy KW - Search task outcome measures KW - Search tasks KW - Task facets KW - mypub ER -