Learner, Assignment, and Domain: Contextualizing Search for Comprehension

Modern search systems are largely designed and optimized for simple navigational or fact-finding tasks, with little support for complex tasks involving comprehension and learning. In response, the search-as-learning research community has undertaken a wide range of research questions focused on understanding how various types of learning outcomes are affected by searcher characteristics, the search task, and the search system. Typically, these views embed learning within a search system. In this paper we take a different view, embedding search within a framework for an end-to-end learning system designed to support learning in a formal educational context. Our central goal is to motivate research questions aligned to advance progress on techniques for active support of comprehension and formal learning. Thus we intentionally set aside goals for informal and surface learning. We argue that to be effective, such a search-centric learning system must model four key components: individual students (searcher factors), the educational domain (topic factors), academic assignments (task factors), and progress toward learning goals (the objective function of the end-to-end system). In modeling these components, our hypothetical system makes inferences about students' learning histories, knowledge states, comprehension, and the utilities of different types of information resources. We present examples of possible techniques and data sources for each model. We also introduce the novel concept of leveraging school assignments as rich task context. Our intention is not to propose a functional system, but to frame search-as-learning in the context of comprehension and to inspire research questions arising from an end-to-end view of this important research domain.