Authors: Jeffrey Parsons, Palash Bera
Tags: 2016, conceptual modeling, expert-novice differences, eye tracking
Experts and novices are known to process information differently when performing expertise-related tasks. We use eye tracking to study the effects of expertise on traditional comprehension and problem-solving tasks in conceptual modeling. In addition to novice and expert levels, we induce an intermediate level we call ‘pseudoexpert’ by providing additional information about a domain prior to viewing a conceptual model of that domain. Our study shows that experts and pseudo-experts outperform novices on both comprehension and problemsolving tasks, while at the same time taking less time to complete tasks (based on eye fixations). Our results further show that experts and pseudo-experts rely on prior knowledge to perform comprehension tasks, as revealed by lower fixation durations on task-relevant portions of the conceptual model. We conclude by summarizing our contributions and discussing avenues for future research.
Cite as:
Bera P. and Parsons J. (2016). “Differences in Expert and Novice Conceptual Modeling Understanding: An Eye-tracking Study,” in AIS SIGSAND, Lubbock, TX, United States, May 12-14, 2016.
