1. The Impact of Individual Differences on Web Searching Performance: Issues for Design and the Digital Divide Allison J. Morgan Ph.D. Candidate Pennsylvania State University Center for the Information Society OASIS Workshop 2004

2. 2 Agenda  Background  Research Questions  Potential Contributions and Implications  Questions

3. 3 Background  The problem of the Digital Divide still exists.  Social access to technology may provide insight into the disparity among users and non-users of Internet technology.  Web search engines are important to the quest for information on the Internet. “Gatekeepers” to the web.

4. 4 Research Questions  The goal of this study is to investigate if individual differences of Internet users impact their searching performance and to assess the related implications for the digital divide.  RQ1: How do individual differences in users of Internet search engines impact searching performance?  RQ2: What are the higher order outcomes for the digital divide?

5. 5 Potential Contributions and Implications  Further support and expand the theory of Individual Differences.  Advance research efforts to develop theory to link the concept of individual differences with information retrieval.  Articulation of an additional obstacle to user participation with the Internet to supports further explanation of the problem of the digital divide.

6. 6 Questions