Morgan Harvey
E-Government Information Search by English-as-a Second Language Speakers: The Effects of Language Proficiency and Document Reading Level
Harvey, Morgan; Brazier, David
Abstract
A rapid increase in the use of web-based technologies - and corresponding changes in government and local council policies - in recent years, means that many vital services are now provided solely online. While this has many potential benefits, it can place additional burdens on certain demographic groups, some of whom may become considerably disadvantaged or even disenfranchised. This is particularly problematic for English-as-a Second Language (ESL) speakers, who are often immigrants or refugees and thus have a greater need to access these e-government services, and who may struggle to understand and assess the relevance of complex documents. In this work we investigate the search behaviours and performance of native English speakers and two different groups of ESL speakers when completing e-government tasks, and the effect of document readability/complexity. In contrast with previous work, our results show significant differences between groups of varying language proficiency in terms of objective search performance, time on task, and self-perceived performance and confidence. We also demonstrate that document reading level moderates the effect of language proficiency on objective search performance. The findings contribute to our existing understanding of how English language proficiency affects search for e-government topics, and have important implications for the future development of e-government services to ensure more equitable access and use.
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | May 17, 2022 |
Online Publication Date | May 31, 2022 |
Publication Date | 2022-07 |
Deposit Date | May 24, 2022 |
Publicly Available Date | Jun 8, 2022 |
Journal | Information Processing and Management |
Print ISSN | 0306-4573 |
Publisher | Elsevier |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 59 |
Issue | 4 |
Article Number | 102985 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2022.102985 |
Keywords | Information behaviour, Language proficiency, Reading level, E-government services |
Public URL | http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2873791 |
Files
E-Government Information Search by English-as-a Second Language Speakers: The Effects of Language Proficiency and Document Reading Level
(1.2 Mb)
PDF
Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
You might also like
The Long Term Effects of Search Query Examples on the Search Behaviours of Non-native Users of Government E-Services
(2017)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Strangers in a Strange Land: A Study of Second Language Speakers Searching for e-Services
(2017)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
A Comparative Study of Native and Non-native Information Seeking Behaviours
(2018)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Information Literacy Workshops: Trials and tribulations of Public Engagement within a pandemic
(2021)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Investigating cognitive adaptability in new workplace cultures with the Imitation Game
(2021)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Downloadable Citations
About Edinburgh Napier Research Repository
Administrator e-mail: repository@napier.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search