| dc.description.abstract | In recent years, mobile devices and electronic journals have been two useful digital technologies to support student learning. The mobile devices provide many advantages, e.g., convenience, flexibility and ubiquitous information access. On the other hand, the electronic journals also provide some benefits, including the speed of access and the ability to download. Such benefits attract more users to access electronic journals with mobile devices. However, users have heterogeneous backgrounds, in terms of their knowledge, skills and needs. Thus, individual differences are essential issues. Among various individual differences, cognitive styles play an important role. However, there is a lack of studies to investigate the effects of cognitive styles on users’ reactions to the use of electronic journals via mobile devices.
To this end, the research presented in this dissertation conducted two empirical studies to examine how different cognitive style groups use electronic journals differently in the context of mobile devices. Study One investigates the search behavior of electronic journals while Study Two examines users’ perception and preferences for the interface design of the electronic journals. Results from these two studies reveal that a cause-and-consequence relationship exists between them. More specifically, the results from Study One can be considered as the consequences while those from Study Two can be regarded as the causes. In other words, how users react to the interface design of the electronic journals can be applied to explain why they demonstrate such search behavior.
For instance, the results from Study One suggest that Holists showed negative emotion when zooming in/out screens. On the other hand, the results from Study Two indicated that Holists thought that excessive functions and information were displayed by this electronic journal. It could be inferred from these results that Holists showed negative emotions with zooming in/out screens probably because too many functions and too much information were provided by this electronic journal. On the other hand, the results from Study One show that Serialists showed negative emotion when using the horizontal screen. Besides, the results from Study Two indicated that Serialists perceived that the design of interface configuration on this electronic journal is inconsistent. Due to such an inconsistent interface configuration, Serialists might frequently need to switch between the horizontal screen and vertical screen. This might be the reason why Serialists would show negative emotion when using horizontal screens. Based on the results of each study, the user models are produced. These models can be applied to develop mobile electronic journals that can accommodate users’ individual differences.
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