Learning Style

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Since information search and decision making inevitably involves some component of learning, learning styles, which are thought to be relatively fixed personal characteristics, may have a role to play in Web search behavior. This is so particularly since learning behavior theorists believe that adult learning behavior in exploratory learning environments is largely the result of the support received during childhood learning experiences. Such experiences affect an individual's perception of risk and his or her attitudes to learning. Despite being recognized for some time (e.g., Kolb, 1985; Vermunt and Van Rijswijk, 1988), learning styles have only rarely been related to search behavior in (bounded) electronic information environments (e.g., Logan, 1990; Saracevic, Kantor, Chamis and Trivison, 1988). More recently, Vermunt and Van Rijswijk (1988) developed an instrument to determine the individual learning styles of university students. One of many distinctions they found was a deep-processing style or a surface-processing style. The same instrument was later used by Beishuizen, Stoutjesdijk, and Van Putten (1994) in a study of learning in a hypertext self-regulated tertiary learning environment. The scale comprises 16 sub-scales of which "Deep Processing" is relevant to the extent of Web search.

Users or consumers attempting to solve consumer problems by obtaining information from the Web are also learning in a self-regulated hypertext environment. In terms of external information-search behavior (ignoring the physical, temporal, and situational factors present in real life), the deep or surface information-processing characteristics of individuals may, in part, explain indepth, the variance of search behavior so often reported in the consumer behavior literature (e.g., Claxton et al., 1974; Kiel and Layton, 1981; Westbrook and Fornell, 1979). Since the Web is an almost unlimited exploratory learning environment it is suggested that learning style may be a factor that affects consumer Web search behavior. Accordingly it is included in the model. A large body of research, including that of Bettman (1979) and Kiel and Layton (1981), has shown that experience in either information search or in a product category affects information search. It is now appropriate to discuss Web use and experience variables.

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