The influence of knowledge type and source reputation on preferences for website or video search results

Abstract

AbstractSearching for information on the web has become an essential task in our society. This article presents a preregistered experimental study that investigates how the knowledge dimension (conceptual, procedural) and relevance of displaying spatiotemporal changes (high, low) for a given search task affect searchers' preference for different resource modalities (websites, videos). Additionally, effects of source reputation (high, low) were examined. Participants were confronted with 16 learning tasks and respective mock‐up video or website search results and had to indicate the likelihood of selecting the respective search results. The learning tasks varied regarding their knowledge dimension and their degree of spatiotemporal changes. Search results varied regarding source reputation and resource modality. Study results showed that search results with low source reputation were more likely to be selected when they were video results as compared to website results. Furthermore, for learning tasks with a high degree of spatiotemporal changes, a preference for videos over website results was found, while a low degree of spatiotemporal changes did not lead to modality preferences. To conclude, both knowledge dimension and degree of visuospatial changes of learning tasks seem to be promising classifications to consider for understanding users' source and modality selection during web‐based learning.